


Two Half Notes Equal a Whole

by ASmolCake



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff, M/M, On Indefinite Hiatus, Slow Burn, aka don't read if you expect this to be finished anytime soon, almost everyone has a familiar, also there's lots of music, but he wants to learn piano, honestly this is just gonna start getting really fluffy oops, i really dont know yet ill add more tags as i write more, keith plays piano, lance plays guitar, magical au, most of them are in their late teens, music and magic the two m's wow, the pov switches between keith and lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 14:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASmolCake/pseuds/ASmolCake
Summary: Keith was content with just using the piano at the local coffee shop and dealing with his (in his opinion) lame cat familiar. But Lance shows up one day (wow what a surprise!) and is hired by Allura as a new employee at the shop. Unfortunately for Keith, Lance also wants to learn piano, and tries to get his way. Or...maybe not so unfortunately.





	1. Abracadabra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Keith meets Lance...and doesn't really like him...

Keith loved playing piano.

Music, at least, was something that couldn’t be replicated with a small spell or wave of the hands.

Admittedly, magic could be used to create simple tunes like the birdsong that trilled every time someone entered the coffee shop. 

Still, piano melodies created by magic sounded different than melodies Keith played on the piano himself. They sounded less real, which was the point of magic, he supposed, but they also sounded fake. Keith had a hard time describing it, but it just felt more correct, in a sense, to run his fingers over the keys and press the pedals and get lost in his playing. He could listen to music created by magic, but he couldn’t play music created by magic. 

Which was why he found himself sitting at the piano in the coffee shop for the fourth time that week. He needed to actually get a life after school (Pidge’s words)...but it wasn’t like he had much else to do anyway. Besides, Keith thought to himself, homework could always wait a little longer. So with these thoughts in mind, he propped his backpack down by the piano and promptly started practicing. 

Almost an hour later, Keith’s fingers flitted across the piano keys as he executed another run-through of the Beethoven Sonata he had been practicing for so long. After three months of hard work and dedication, the piece was nearing perfection. Not that any run-through would ever be considered “perfect,” but Keith felt like he was getting pretty close. By now it was mostly just tweaking dynamics to the way he wanted and fixing the occasional wrong note. Memorization had come easily—it usually was after playing any piece long enough. 

As he neared the end of the first movement of the sonata, Keith’s movements quickened and he crescendoed from the light pianissimo he had been playing at previously. The piece built up to a fortissimo and Keith poured his strength and passion into the final chords. 

“Woooo! That sounded great, Keith!” Allura stood from her position from behind the counter, clapping and cheering excitedly. Her familiar, a beautiful blue macaw named Lapis, sat perched on her shoulder. She paused from grooming her wings to give Keith encouragement as well, in the form of cheerful squawks. 

Keith ducked his head, embarrassed. Getting praise from Allura always did that to him, no matter how many times he received it. Though, he’d like to see how Shiro would respond to that, Keith thought, smirking evilly and imagining a blushing and stuttering Shiro very weak to Allura’s words. It didn’t help that Shiro’s familiar was also a bird—a fearsome osprey with too much of a love for fish—whom had taken a liking to Allura’s macaw. 

“It’s just the first movement,” Keith responded bashfully. “I still have to finish learning and memorizing the second and third movements.” His own familiar, a black cat with white paws, curled around his legs and looked at him as if to say, you got a compliment. Just accept it. Sheesh. Keith glared down at cat, who knew perfectly well that he could not and never would be able to take compliments well. 

“You know you don’t have to finish the entire song. You said so, that Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata is one of his more advanced pieces. You could always try a different piece for fun!” Allura suggested. 

“Nope.” Keith replied determinedly.

“Ah,” Allura realized. “It’s Pidge, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” Keith had never been one to turn down a challenge. And when Pidge had challenged him to learn the complete sonata (which meant all movements), Keith found himself accepting, as usual. The only time he turned challenges down were when they were unreasonable, like the time Pidge had gotten herself drunk and dared him to run outside in the middle of the night screaming that he was a murderer. Keith had declined, and had to stop Pidge from almost doing it herself instead.

“It’ll be good to challenge yourself at least,” Allura reassured him. “I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the piece too...anyway, it’s always nice to have some music to listen to while working.”

Allura worked at Altea Beans, a cozy coffee shop situated on the corner of the street down from Keith’s high school. Business was usually good, but they were always looking for new employees, or as Coran, the chirpy owner of the shop and Allura’s uncle, said, “new beans.” Keith didn’t understand how employees equaled beans, but it was Coran’s shop after all. He could say what he wanted. 

Unlike the others, Coran didn’t possess even faint magical powers, nor did he have a familiar. Despite that, Keith thought that Coran’s quirky personality definitely made up for it. Sometimes, though, he was strange enough to also scare people from trying out for a position at the shop. He was like passionfruit—an acquired taste and personality that one had to get used to. 

Allura, on the other hand, usually attracted most of the customers. Afterwards, her delicious coffee always brought them back and eager for more. People always thought that she poured most of her magic into making coffee, while in truth she was just skilled at her job. Allura’s magic was powerful, but she preferred to make coffee without it. And while some customers were drawn in by her cappuccinos, lattes, and how she could make basically any type of coffee imaginable taste delicious, her looks also played a part. Keith had witnessed the numerous date offerings she got, and how she would politely turn down each one. Secretly, he thought she was hoping for the day when it would be Shiro asking the question instead of another random customer. But with how Shiro was, Keith doubted that day would be anytime soon. His brother was really bad when it came to anything romantic. And saying that...might even be an understatement.

The first time Shiro and Keith had come into the shop after moving to the city, Shiro had turned all blubbery and started making a fool of himself upon seeing Allura at the register. Keith admitted that she was beautiful—being gay didn’t stop him from seeing that. Anyhow, after that one coffee, they came back to get another…and another…Both Keith and Shiro needed it to stay awake sometimes, and for Shiro, getting to talk to Allura was a bonus. 

It was then that Keith noticed the piano in the corner of the shop. It was by no means impressive, just a small upright piano, but the keys were still in good condition and not turning yellow like some of the run-down and abandoned pianos Keith had seen. It was better than what Keith had in his old apartment for sure. And in their new home, there was no piano at all, so Keith had instantly been drawn to it. Through his brother talking to Allura, Keith eventually gained the opportunity to play it (more like: Shiro brought up Keith’s hobbies during a conversation which resulted in Allura suggesting that Keith play for them…then she demanded that Keith continue coming here to practice because she enjoyed his playing so much). He got to come to the shop when it was open and use the piano whenever he wanted, under one condition. Somehow news had gotten out to Allura (probably from Shiro, Keith suspected) that Keith was a “shy and introverted boy who needed to socialize more.” It wasn’t entirely wrong, Keith supposed, but what if he didn’t want to socialize more?

Thus the idea of piano lessons. In order to bring him more out of his shell, Allura demanded that Keith had to give kids who wanted to learn piano free lessons. Even though the lessons Keith gave were free, he got paid from Allura and free coffee—which was a lifesaver in the mornings before school. And the lessons had somewhat succeeded; Keith was still a pretty quiet person but it felt good to see the happiness on little kids’ faces when they learned their first song. 

Pidge teased him about it—“You’re becoming a softie.” 

“Shut up, Pidge,” Keith would snarkily reply. But he continued teaching his lessons, even when he was preparing for the competition coming up. Hence why he was practicing more and more these days to bring his playing up to level. 

For now, Keith left Allura to prepare an order for the customer that had just come in. He took out his book and flipped to the page with the beginning of the sonata he had just finished playing. There was a part that had felt off when he was running through it earlier, and Keith tried to remember where it was. Something about the dynamics and pacing of that moment needed to be fixed. He flipped through the pages and sighed when he couldn’t recall it. He’d just have to start over and stop when he found that part. 

Resolutely, Keith started the piece again, with the music and notes in front of him this time. Even though he had it memorized, it was always good to play with the book in case there were small things he had missed. Such as the section he was playing right now, Keith noticed. It needed to be faster, leading up to the forte at the end of the page. Speeding up, speeding up, speeding up—until a fat blob landed ungracefully on the upper keys and a cacophony of noises ensued. His cat familiar, whom he had named Mittens (it’s what she wanted to be called, definitely not Keith having trouble thinking of a creative name), had pounced up onto the keys and was currently trying to make herself comfortable. Keith pushed her off without remorse. He needed to be able to reach the high notes later on without being blocked by a heavy lump of fur.

Mittens yowled up at him from her spot (now on the ground) in anger. Keith ignored her.

Keith was so focused on playing that he didn’t hear the distinct magical jingle of the bell as a new customer entered the store. The jingle, set up by one of Allura’s spells, was supposed to sound like a quick flurry of birdsong. What he did hear, however, was the smooth, honey-sounding voice that flowed out of the newcomer’s mouth. 

“Well hellooooo, beautiful!” The stranger said, presumably to Allura. An annoyed sigh came from her direction (not another flirter!). “And hello to you too,” he cooed. Keith guessed he was talking to her parrot now. “Does she speak?”

“A little,” answered Allura. “But mostly just telepathically to me.”

“Say, ‘You’re the best person ever!’” the stranger prodded at Lapis. When Lapis didn’t repeat the words, Allura shrugged sympathetically. “She only talks if she wants to,” Allura explained.

But the next words out of Allura’s mouth were not what Keith was expecting to hear. “A flying dolphin? I haven’t seen one of those before…” 

Curious now, Keith looked up and over the piano, still playing by feel, and caught a glimpse of an actual flying dolphin. It was excitedly doing flips mid-air. The stranger did have a cool familiar, Keith had to say. Especially in comparison to his cat. Cats could be housepets. Dolphins, on the other hand, especially the flying kind, usually weren’t. 

_I’m right down here,_ Mittens telepathically communicated, indignantly pawing at Keith’s legs. Keith continued to ignore her.

“Yes! Actually, Lola used to be just a normal dolphin. But my buddy Hunk taught me how to give her wings and stuff and look! Now she flies! Doesn’t even need water, but she enjoys it when I fill up the bathtub,” he said, grinning proudly. “Anyway, I saw the sign on the window and wanted to apply for a position here,” the person continued.

Though Keith was still playing piano, he was distracted now, trying to listen to the conversation going on across the room. It had been a while since Altea Beans had gotten a new addition to its small group of employees. But this was a rather unprofessional stranger that was applying; seriously, why would you flirt with the person who’s deciding whether or not to hire you?

“Really?” Though Keith couldn’t see her, he was pretty sure that Allura’s eyebrows had shot up. “Would you like to just have a quick interview right now or some other time? There aren’t really many requirements, I’d just like to see if you would be fit for the job.”

“How about right now. I mean, when you’re as great as me, you’re prepared for an interview on the spot. The name’s Lance, by the way,” the person, whom Keith now knew was named Lance, confidently said. 

“Very well, Lance.” Allura said, her accent making his name sound more like _Lahnce_. Keith could imagine her grimacing at the arrogance oozing from his mouth. Nevertheless, he knew that Allura would give him the position if he could do the job.

After a pause, Allura looked over at Keith. “Keith!” She called. “Could you take over the register for a few minutes while I have this interview?” 

Keith tried the I-can’t-hear-you-because-I’m-playing-piano-trick. There was nothing wrong with helping out and he had done it before, but Keith didn’t like handling the register and socializing with customers. Either way, Allura saw through it. “I know you can hear me, Keith.”

Sighing, Keith pushed the bench away from the piano with his feet and stood up. Mittens eagerly jumped back onto the piano and sat onto the upper keys, which were illuminated by cozy rays of sunlight filtering through the back windows of the shop. “Okay. But you better not take too long,” he said, glaring at Allura as he made his way across the shop to the counter. 

Only as he saw the front of his face did Keith realize that the newcomer, Lance, was actually very attractive. Bright blue eyes that reminded him of an ocean met his own. 

Keith suddenly felt the need to run back to the piano and hide behind it. “Uhhhh, hi?” he managed to say, acting as if he hadn’t been listening to the entire conversation. 

“Is that a mullet?” Lance asked curiously. Then, “Yup. That’s definitely a mullet. Seriously, who even has one anymore?” 

“Me,” Keith replied, peeved. He took back his original thoughts. Forget the looks; this boy was going to be bothersome if he got the position. Again, which he probably would, since the shop was in need of employees. 

Lance looked like he was about to say something else when Allura motioned him into the back room. “Oh, and Keith?” she asked as she disappeared into the back, “Don’t forget to be friendly when ringing up their orders, okay?” Keith could hear the smirk in her voice. He groaned. He didn’t need to be reminded of that one time where he had been in a bad mood when Allura had asked him to operate the register. He had been so snarky with the customer that the person had filed a personal complaint and then demanded that he talk to the manager. Coran had to deal with an angry customer yelling in his face, and nobody was happy. In Keith’s opinion, that guy had a strong reaction. He had still received his coffee the way he wanted, after all. Either way, Keith figured a repeat of the event would not bode well for him or Coran. 

“Hey, unlike him, I’m a friendly guy,” Keith could hear Lance say flirtatiously to Allura in response. He heard Allura sigh. He also heard Lance’s dolphin chirp exasperatedly, as if she had heard words like these too many times. Well, maybe if he was annoying enough he wouldn’t be hired and Keith wouldn’t have to deal with him. Which, considering how often Keith came to Altea Beans, that would be a very big nuisance. Though, Keith imagined that if he just stayed by the piano while Lance was working he’d avoid most interactions, or hopefully all. 

The door finally closed behind them and Keith was left to himself to operate the counter. He put on the cheesy apron that had a picture of a smiling coffee bean on it and hoped that there would be no customers. 

Tapping his fingers, Keith was reminded of how hungry he was as his eyes scanned the room and landed on the deli sandwiches they had on display. He wondered if Allura would notice if he took one. Even if she did, she probably wouldn’t mind. Not since Shiro had told her that he was eating unhealthily. But in his defense, Keith didn’t eat ramen _that_ often. 

Just as he was about to reach over and grab a sandwich out of the display fridge, the door jangled. Keith jerked his hand away from the fridge and tried to act professional. 

“Good afternoon. Welcome to Altea Beans! What would you like to order today?” Keith asked in a fakely enthusiastic tone. He looked uninterestedly at the stranger who had entered. 

“Oh! Uh, I’m actually not getting anything. My friend Lance just came in here to apply for a job here, and told me to wait for him outside. But I kinda got bored outside and decided to come in. It smells nice in here,” he added. “As in, it smells like coffee—like it should—but it’s a nice coffee smell, you know?” He shrugged. 

Keith gave a small smile back, because he wasn’t sure what to reply with. He wasn’t good with conversations. 

“Ooooh, have I seen you around before? You’re the guy that plays piano, right? It’s really good, you should totally host a concert or recital or something. Also…” he squinted at Keith. “Don’t you go to our high school? I feel like I’ve seen you before. Maybe not though, since the school’s really big. I still get lost in the hallways,” he said sheepishly. “Anyway, I’m Hunk.”

“If you mean the high school down the street, then, yeah. Also, I do play piano,” Keith replied, and happy because someone other than Allura had complimented his playing. “I teach lessons. To kids,” Keith offered. “I’m probably not at the level to be hosting a concert yet though.”

“Nah, I’ve heard you play. The stuff I hear is pretty advanced. Even Lance has been here a few times and says you’re good.” Hunk smiled reassuringly.

Lance had been here before? Keith felt like he would have noticed, giving Lance’s outgoing personality, but then again, Keith was usually very engrossed in his music when he played. Also, he had complimented his playing? Keith didn’t think that the very same arrogant person he saw earlier would be one to do that. 

“Uh, thanks?” Keith said, unsure. “Lance is in the back with Allura and they’re having their interview, in case you wanted to know,” he pointed his thumb in the general direction of where they were.

“Okay! I’ll just sit here and wait. We should definitely get together sometime. You seem like a cool guy. And I bet you’ll get to know Lance pretty well since he’s probably going to be working here too.”

“Actually, I don’t usually work here. I just use the piano. But since Allura’s interviewing your friend I was forced to take over,” Keith explained wryly. He also grimaced at the reminder of likely having to see Lance a lot more after today. 

“I mean, you’re here a lot of the time anyway. Also, random question, but what’s your favorite type of coffee?” Hunk asked. 

“I...don’t have one,” Keith looked away, embarrassed. It was a coffee shop, after all, but Keith was really only here for the piano. 

“Really? You don’t seem like that type of person, but whatever suits you, right?” Hunk smiled cheerfully, then cocked his head and stared at Keith, studying him. “Hmmm...I bet you’ll definitely like my coconut bread though. I’ll bring you a loaf sometime. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like it.”

“Sure,” Keith said, and fell silent. Hunk took a seat at one of the tables up front, and pulled out his phone. Keith anxiously tapped his fingers against the counter. It was one of his habits that he had gotten from playing so much piano. His fingers were always fidgeting. 

A few minutes of silence ensued, and, to Keith’s relief, no other people entered the shop. Eventually, the back door was pushed open again and Allura and Lance came out, his dolphin floating behind him. 

Lance spotted Hunk across the room and smiled brightly, pumping his fist. “Hunk, dude! I got the job! Next time you see me, I’ll whip you up the best coffee you’ve ever had!”

“You already make the best coffees, Lance,” Hunk said, but he too was grinning. Even Allura couldn’t suppress a small smile at how excited Lance sounded. Lola had glided over to Allura and she was whispering to the dolphin, but Keith couldn’t tell what they were saying.

“Yeah! I bet my coffees will be way better than yours!” Lance boasted, shooting a glance Keith’s way.

“I don’t even work here,” muttered Keith for the second time in the past ten minutes. 

“Doesn’t matter. Prepare to have the best employee yet.” 

“Lance, not everything is a contest,” Hunk said, sighing, but his words went unnoticed by Lance.

“Anyway,” Allura cut in, “Tomorrow you can come in for your first shift and we can figure out a schedule for the rest of the days.”

“Sounds cool,” Lance said, flashing another smile, though this one seemed more directed at Allura. He and Hunk started heading out the door.

“Well, see ya guys tomorrow then, Allura and…”

“Keith,” Keith supplied.

“...mullet-boy,” Lance finished. The door swung closed behind him as he and Hunk stepped outside.

Keith frowned. He was not looking forward to tomorrow, to say the least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This is my first work here, so I'd really appreciate any feedback. Also, feel free to point out grammar/spelling mistakes or offer any suggestions, because my editing consists of skimming through my chapters once before publishing them. 
> 
> Also please note that updates may be slow as I am a high school student and finals are coming up...but once summer hits updates should be faster. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!!


	2. Con Fuoco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance seem to get along better after Lance shows he genuinely enjoys Keith's playing (that is, after Keith stops pounding the keys and actually starts playing properly). Keith offers a word of encouragement for Lance, which makes the latter deeply consider taking piano lessons.

Keith should have known better when entered the coffee shop the next day. 

When he met Hunk, Keith had learned that they all actually went to the same high school. Of course Keith should have realized that their free hours would be similar, and he and Lance would end up at the coffee shop together for the majority of the time after school. 

So Keith should have been expecting to see Lance’s face when he pushed open the door to the shop, even though he had arrived a little later than normal. After failing his math test that day, Keith only felt like unwinding with some music and forgetting about school. Instead, he was greeted with an overly cheerful voice and a too-bright smile. Even Lance's blue-silver dolphin, who was merely hovering around him, seemed to radiate happiness. 

“Hello!!! This is Altea Beans, what can I get—oh. It’s the piano mullet guy...Keith? That is your name right?” Lance asked cautiously.

“Yeah, and contrary to your belief, my name isn’t actually ‘Mullet,’” Keith replied dryly. 

Lance’s grin deepened and he seemed like he was about to reply, but Keith had no real desire to stay at the counter and continue the conversation, so he made a quick beeline for the piano.

“Wait, before you start playing piano, tell me if you think Allura will like this pick-up line.” Lance called from across the room, causing Keith turn around. 

Keith sighed, mood still dampened from the bad day he had at school. “She might laugh at them, but I doubt Allura will be charmed by any of your pick-up lines, even if you think otherwise. Allura, well…” _Allura likes Shiro. And Shiro likes her back. Even though they won’t directly say it in each others’ faces._ But Keith didn’t want to completely shatter Lance’s dreams, so he refrained from speaking his thoughts. 

“Okay, anywayyyyy.” Lance waved his hand dismissively at Keith’s words, dazzling smile still on his face. Keith tried not to look at it, or at his soft pink lips. Keith also tried to get his brain to stop having such thoughts. 

Lance rested an arm on the counter and cleared his throat. “Even though I’ve only known you for a day, I’ve _Bean_ thinking about you. Bean. Get it? Because this coffee shop’s name is Altea Bean? So, what do you think? Will Allura be swooning over me?” Lance looked at Keith expectantly.

Though he wanted to facepalm at the words, Keith was also trying to control his heart rate. What was going on? Okay, so maybe Lance was kind of cute and he had just thrown a cheesy pick-up line at Keith. But in the end, those words were meant for Allura, even though she would never take them seriously. Keith willed a blush away before speaking. “It was okay. But don’t be disappointed when Allura only gives you a flat stare and nothing else.”

“Well I thought it was at least decent,” Lance replied defiantly, though his smile diminished a little. “I guess the only way to find out is to deliver the line to Allura herself later,” he resolutely added. 

Meanwhile, Keith went to the corner of the room where the piano was and dropped his backpack there. 

_You’re pretty amusing to watch,_ Mittens said, a ball of fur curled up against the piano legs. Keith always dropped her off at the shop in the morning and she would be waiting for him after school.

 _What do you mean?_ Keith asked. 

_You’re lucky that your specialty is fire magic, or I bet you wouldn’t have been able to stop your face from burning up. “Will Allura be swooning over me?” Lance asks. And you’re the one who ends up swooning._

_Shut up._ Keith ignored the self-satisfied look on his cat’s face, thankful that Lance couldn’t hear his and Mittens’ telepathetic conversation. Blocking out his familiar’s voice from his mind , Keith starting running through his scales to warm up. They were boring, but a necessity. He couldn’t be playing Beethoven with cold hands—that would just lead to him being unable to play all the quick sixteenth note runs and have his fingers stumbling over the keys.

After a few minutes of various scales, chord progressions, and arpeggios, Keith pulled out a piano book from his backpack and propped it up on the stand, opening it to a page he had become very familiar with lately. The competition was coming up in a month, and Keith still had to polish up the piece and bring it up to the level of the other people he knew he would be up against. And practice time was limited lately, Keith realized as he glanced at the clock. One of the little kids he usually taught would be coming in within the hour for his usual weekly lesson. With the little time he had today, he decided to do a quick run-through of the piece first and then work on some details in the first page afterwards. 

He started the piece almost flawlessly, fingers bouncing lightly on the keys for the repeated chords in the left hand. But Keith was still worked up from math class earlier, and was reminded of the look of disappointment on his teacher’s face as she handed back the calculus test, a sad 53 percent marked in red at the top of the paper. His foot started pressing the pedal harder, blurring all the chords together. His fingers hit the keys louder, and he started pouring some of his frustration into his playing. The notes weren’t supposed to be this loud, and Keith was supposed to be playing at mezzo piano, but he was so annoyed. It was only one test, but he had at least thought he passed it. It was just one test, but what if it happened again? Keith was one of the few people that somewhat enjoyed math, but flunking his last test seemed to indicate the opposite.

“Dude, can you not kill the piano?” Lance asked loudly, breaking through Keith’s thoughts. 

Keith, startled, didn’t even realize what Lance had said. Already distracted, he stopped playing and ignored the cacophonous sound that his elbows made when he rested them on the piano keys to prop up his face. “What?” 

“I said, can you not kill the piano? I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to like, murder it and stuff while you’re playing…” Lance repeated. Before Keith knew it, he had made his way across the room and was now leaning an arm on top of the piano, wearing a slightly concerned expression on his face. 

_He’s got a point. When you get angry, you project your thoughts, and I’m able to hear them. And after listening to that very long rant in your head, you gotta take it easy on yourself,_ Mittens said telepathically, the smugness from earlier gone. _Don’t worry too much, your math grade will be fine. You came here to play piano, right? So play it.. Nicely._

Keith grumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

“I mean it was sounding pretty good until you tried to kill it though,” Lance added unsurely, glancing down at Keith. 

“Well, thanks. As if I didn’t already know that pounding the keys would be bad,” Keith muttered.

“Sheesh, I was just trying to help,” Lance explained, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance at Keith. His previously-bright smile had faded into a frown. “But, you know, if you’re just going to be angry and rude all the time, I think I’ll reconsider.” He lifted his arm from where it was resting on the piano and quietly walked back to the register. 

_Good,_ Keith thought sullenly. In all honesty, it had been refreshing to take out all his anger and frustration on the piano keys, but now he just felt drained. 

_As a cat who specializes in being moody, I’ll have to say that there are other ways for relieving stress,_ Mittens said, inserting herself into Keith’s thoughts. 

_Will you just shut up? I get it, now let me practice. I only have half an hour before one of my students comes in for a lesson,_ Keith replied.

 _That’s your fault for scheduling an inconvenient time,_ Mittens supplied, much to Keith’s annoyance. 

_I swear, please stop before I use a spell on you and make you mute,_ Keith angrily glared at his cat who looked much more comfortable than him, a heavy lump of black-and-white fur stretched out up against his leg. 

_Make me,_ Mittens taunted. 

_Why are you my familiar,_ an exasperated Keith demanded back, not for the first time. But he didn’t put a silencing spell on the cat. 

Before Mittens could say anything else, he started playing from where he had left off before, much softer and lighter now. This time, he managed to make it through the whole piece without pounding the keys too hard and meaninglessly. 

As he executed the final chords, Keith heard clapping coming from the front of the room and looked over the piano to see the front café door swing closed. Allura had just appeared at the front counter with her macaw besides Lance, in time for the last few seconds of Keith’s piece. She clapped every time Keith finished, despite him having been playing the same piece for so long. Alongside her, Lance looked genuinely amazed and his frown was gone.

“You’re getting better every day Keith, keep it up!” Allura smiled brilliantly. Keith, for once, returned the smile. Allura’s compliments never stopped coming but they also never ceased to make Keith happy inside. Knowing that at least one person enjoyed his playing meant so much to him. 

“Yeah...provided you don’t try to murder the piano,” Lance muttered, but it seemed more as an afterthought and as if he didn’t really mean his words to sound so harsh. 

“Lance,” Allura said threateningly. 

“You weren’t here when he shredded the keys earlier, but okay.” Then directing his words at Keith, Lance admitted, “Your playing just now sounded pretty good.”

“Um, thanks?” Keith said.

He could almost see his familiar smashing her head into the ground below him. _Your social skills never improve, I swear,_ Mittens groaned. 

Keith would have replied, if not for the telltale jingle coming from the door. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Keith guessed it was one of his students, and he was right. William ambled through the door with his piano books in his right arm, grinning excitedly. His mom waved at Keith through the window, and then ducked back into her car, which was parked on the side of the road.

“Hi Keith!” William greeted excitedly. 

“Hey Will,” Keith grinned back. He couldn’t help it; Will was so cheerful all the time and it rubbed off on people around him. 

“I practiced a lot this week!” Will said proudly, eliciting a small chuckle out of Keith. He was one of Keith’s favorite students. Despite being only seven he was very ambitious and actually seemed to enjoy piano—like he was playing it of his own accord, not of his parents’.

“That’s really good. So you can start warming up. We said we’d do a G major scale this week, right?” 

“Yeah!” Will took the piano bench, and Keith pulled out a chair over from one of the tables to set next to him. 

As he carefully watched over Will, Keith could hear Lance and Allura’s chatter in the background.

“Wait..Keith teaches lessons?” Lance asked curiously. 

“Yeah. I encouraged him to do it, especially since Shiro mentioned that it might help him socialize more. Shiro is Keith’s brother, by the way,” Allura replied. Of course. Shiro had told Allura about his introvertedness, which lead her to push him to teach lessons, but at this point Keith he no longer held a grudge against his brother. He would never admit it to Shiro’s face, but he had warmed up to teaching lessons.

“Hmmm...okay.” Lance replied, sounding deep in thought, leaving Keith to wonder what he could possibly be contemplating. 

“Keith! Keith! Did my scale sound good?” Will looked up at him expectantly. 

“Yeahhh,” Keith said, though somewhat absentmindedly. He silently thanked the piano for being tall so that Lance and Allura couldn’t see him listening to their conversation. “Okay, play it staccato this time and we can move on,” he decided. 

“Okay!” Will eagerly tried to play the scale with the notes sounding jumpy and detached, but he struggled in having both of his hands touch the keys at the same time. He ended up starting over, but after that he seemed to improve a little. 

“Sooo, did you practice the minuet this week?” Keith asked and helped put Will’s music book the stand. 

“Yes! My mom said it sounded really pretty. She said if I keep practicing someday I’ll sound as good as you!”

Keith felt his bad mood from earlier slowly chipping away. “Okay, let me hear you run through it once,” Keith said. Truth be told, he had heard this song one too many times but Will had wanted to learn it more than any other songs in the book, and Keith gave in. How could he say no to an enthusiastic child?

Meanwhile, Lance was asking Allura yet another question. Keith wasn’t trying to listen, but Lance’s voice carried across the room. “Sooooo does Keith charge for lessons, or…”

“No, they’re free. But he usually only teaches younger kids, in case you were interested.” Allura replied. Keith didn’t like her tone of voice.

“If he doesn’t get money out of it, why would he want to teach lessons then?” Lance asked, ignoring the last part of Allura’s sentence. 

“Firstly, the shop pays him to teach lessons, because I was the one who wanted him to do it in the first place. He just doesn’t get money from the actual students. And second, he teaches it because he likes playing piano and he wants to share his passion with others.” Allura replied. 

“Okay, okay. He just seems very quiet and not like the type of person to do that,” Lance countered. 

“I must admit, Keith can be quite reserved. But if you talk to him you’ll actually realize that sometimes people do things out of the good of their own hearts, Lance. Keith teaches piano so others can grow to love it too.” Allura said.

“Oh my god,” Lance groaned. “This is too cheesy. You sound like my mom.”

Allura had no reply for that. The front door jingled and their conversation ended as Lance rushed to help a customer. Allura went through the door to the back of the shop.

Too late, Keith realized he had been distracted again and not paying attention to Will, his own student. _Focus,_ he reminded himself. But his brain continued to entertain the thought that he might have someone older interested in learning piano. Lance, to be specific. Keith wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, it would be interesting to teach someone who was his age for once. On the other hand, Keith didn’t know if he wanted to even teach Lance or not, because they probably wouldn’t get along well. But if Lance were genuinely interested...

Meanwhile, Will finished running through the minuet. Keith spent the remainder of the hour helping Will work through small mistakes and trying to get his playing to sound less robotic. A couple times, his mind drifted back to Lance and Allura’s conversation about piano lessons, and another time it drifted back up to Lance’s pick-up line. Keith noticed that Lance had forgotten to tell it to Allura today, and hated the satisfaction he felt when he realized he had been the only one to hear the line so far. 

When the lesson eventually ended and Will’s mother came to pick him up, Keith explained what they had gone over during the hour and then helped escort them out. 

Keith had packed his books back into his backpack and was about to leave as well when his stomach rumbled. He might as well just get something here, for the sake of convenience. Besides, Shiro would probably complain if he went home and had noodles for dinner again. 

Since there were currently no other customers, Keith stepped up to the register where Lance was, one elbow propping up his face on the counter. His dolphin Lola hovered over his shoulder and watched as he lazily doodled invisible lines with his finger. Keith was momentarily entranced, watching the lines shimmer magically for a few seconds before dissipating into thin air. 

Keith cleared his throat. Lance’s face flew up, but he didn’t stop the sparkling trail that his finger left. “Oh hey, Keith. Come to see my amazing art?” 

Keith had no idea how good the drawings actually were, because the lines disappeared too quickly. “What are you even drawing?” he asked. 

“Lola wanted me to try to draw her, so.” He waved his finger around in the air some more, creating more lines. This time, Keith was able to see a vague dolphin shape before it vanished. 

“Well I’m actually here to get a basil pesto and cheese sandwich,” Keith said. 

“Alrighty,” Lance replied, sliding aside the glass door on the display fridge to get Keith’s food, his index finger leaving a trail behind it. Keith couldn’t help but notice that the trail looked like it was a thin stream of water, glimmering in the evening light. It made Keith curious, and as Lance rang up the total, Keith asked, “Is your specialty water magic?”

“That’ll be five forty. And I guess I would say so? I like using water magic the most but I’m not sure if it’s my specialty.” Lance answered. 

Keith payed for his sandwich and started to take it from Lance’s hand when he suddenly yanked it back. 

“Wha—”

Lance shook his glowing finger at Keith. “Not yet.” He grabbed a chocolate chip cookie from next to the register and wrapped in a napkin. “For your great piano playing here’s a free cookie too!” He beamed at Keith, holding out the cookie and sandwich for him to take.

“You know, I could just ask Allura and she’d give me a free cookie anyway. And probably a free sandwich,” Keith pointed out, but took both items nonetheless. 

“I’m on shift right now, not Allura, and besides, it’s the thought that counts, right? Also, after you stopped pounding the keys to death, it really did sound amazing. Having some music to listen to while working adds to this nice café atmosphere and it helps make things less boring.” Lance said earnestly.

“Having you here in the shop makes things a little less boring,” Keith replied, considering Lance’s outgoing nature, his still-sparkling finger, and his dolphin, who was doing loop-de-loops in the air again.

Lance narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure if that was a compliment or not. Anyway, I saw you playing and I have a small piano back at home...but none of us play it. Occasionally my brothers or sisters will bang a few keys or try something, but that’s about it. I don’t even know why it’s there. I play guitar, but piano seems fun too. And I saw you teaching that kid earlier and how happy you made him. So, don’t stop playing and keep inspiring others. I mean it,” Lance said seriously. He seemed deep in thought, but also forlorn. Keith knew that feeling. It was one of hopelessness, that you would never be as good as the stars you looked up to. He remembered when he had just started learning piano, before his father’s death. He remembered his father taking him to a piano concert, and he remembered thinking there was no way he would ever be as good as the professional on stage. But now, even though he was still a long way off, he knew it was possible. Now he was the inspiration, for his students at least. 

“It’s not too late to start,” Keith stated. He knew people who started playing piano, or other instruments, when they had been much older than Lance. “You play guitar already, but if piano interests you too, it’s never too late.”

Lance’s lips turned up into a soft smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. See you tomorrow, then.”

“You too, Lance,” Keith said. It was the first time he had addressed Lance by his name. Strangely, Keith found himself thinking about how nicely the word rolled off his tongue.

Still thinking about what Lance had said, Keith made his way over to the door, hearing the familiar magical birdsong jingle as he opened it. 

“Mittens,” Keith called, keeping the door open.

 _I’m coming, I’m coming._ Lazily, Mittens stretched and rose from her spot on the ground, and Keith waited until she had strutted past him before letting the door swing closed behind them. 

As Mittens leaped into the small carrier on the back of his motorcycle and Keith began driving home, he still couldn’t get the idea of teaching Lance out of his head. Earlier, he didn’t know what to think of it, but now, if Lance ever asked, Keith felt like he almost wanted to do it. 

Later that evening, as Keith ate his sandwich and cookie, he thought about pick-up lines and sparkling finger doodles. For some reason the food tasted better than the last time he had eaten it.

As for Lance, as he tried to work through his math homework that night, he remembered Keith’s words. “It’s never too late.” And, not for the first time, he seriously considered learning piano. 

But for the first time, instead of pushing those thoughts back down and telling himself that it was just another stupid idea, that he would not get very far, that he should just stick to guitar, he didn’t. 

_“It’s never too late,”_ Keith had said.

 _So,_ Lance thought to himself, _Why not? What do I have to lose?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Now that school is out and finals are over, I'm planning to maybe try and get a chapter out every week, or at least every other week. Although I'm not especially proud of this chapter, I felt like I should just put it out, rather than stare at it and get myself stuck in a rut. However, I do have the next chapter planned out and I'm excited to start writing it.
> 
> After watching season six I feel like switching Keith's familiar to a wolf, but I honestly like writing about a moody cat more, so :^)
> 
> As usual, feel free to offer feedback (especially with pacing of the story? I'm not sure if it feels rushed or if I introduced everyone too quickly, so feedback on that is greatly appreciated)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Lessons?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance tries to one-up Keith with his some music playing of his own, in the form of guitar. He also asks Keith the fated question, and hopes Keith is willing to teach him piano.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wanted to know, this is the guitar song Lance plays. I was listening to it on loop most of the time while writing this chapter, so now it's stuck in my head. It's catchy though, and I have no regrets. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=UC1yynQi2iQ

Okay, yes, Lance wanted to learn piano. And today was the day he was going to ask Keith if he’d be willing to give Lance lessons. 

But first.

Lance was not to be outdone. Sure, Keith was amazing at the piano, but Lance had skills too—at least in guitar. He was going to show everyone his own playing was no joke. And show Keith that he was no musical amateur. Of course piano was very, very different from guitar, but Lance was a flamboyant person. Sometimes he wanted to show off. 

Also because he knew Keith might be reluctant to teach him and would need some persuading. Keith was giving free lessons, but he wasn’t giving those lessons away freely to just anyone at all. Lance knew that, but he also wanted those lessons, and he was going to get them. So maybe if he saw that Lance had musical talent he’d be more willing to teach him. 

And maybe Lance hadn’t been that interested until he had seen Keith play. The thought of lessons had always been in the back of his mind, but Keith had brought those thoughts resurfacing and much stronger before. But no one needed to know that. Lance silently thanked Keith for being so focused when he was playing, so that the pianist failed to see Lance usually watching him from behind the register. Lance couldn’t help it; Keith just looked so absorbed in the music. Lance couldn’t take his eyes off of him, and was especially entranced watching Keith’s fingers. Sometimes they moved slowly and expressively, and other times they flew around on the piano keys, pressing keys in a flurry of motions. In a way, it was like Keith was dancing—except with just his hands. _I want to learn how to do that,_ Lance thought to himself.

Watching Keith play had also brought back memories of his abuelita. Lance had not been lying the other day when he said that no one in his family currently played piano. But in the past, before she had died, his abuelita had filled their home with music, playing intricate melodies and beautiful tunes. Lance had a large family, so his house was almost never quiet, but he used to be able to hear the piano in the background as he did chores or homework, and he missed that. Taking up guitar had filled that gap, but only somewhat. Now, every time he entered the house, he would see the untouched piano, collecting dust. His fingers were itching to play it— _if only he could._

Sure, his siblings would occasionally bash a few notes out, but it was nowhere as beautiful as his grandmother’s playing. Heck, Lance had even tried to play something before, but it sounded stupid and mechanical, too loud and not expressive enough.

Lance was jolted out of his thoughts by Lola, who was nudging him from behind with her head. The dolphin clicked angrily. _Lance, you’re about to walk past the coffee shop._

 _Oops,_ Lance replied sheepishly. Sighing, he adjusted the strap of his guitar over his shoulder. He plastered a smile onto his face and tried to think happier thoughts as he opened the door to Altea Beans. Upon entering, he saw Allura at the counter, serving a customer a drink. Her macaw was perched by the window, observing the people in the café. Lance noticed that Keith had yet to arrive, and the only music Lance could hear in the coffee shop was faint jazz drifting from the speakers, mostly covered up by the sound of people’s chatter.

“Hey Allura!” Lance greeted her. 

“Good afternoon, Lance,” Allura greeted back, giving him a smile. Man, Allura was gorgeous, but Lance knew he had no chance with her. She probably already had a boyfriend or something. Still, there was no harm done in flirting just a little. It would help distract him from thinking about his abuelita. He didn’t want to get all sappy and break down into a crying mess in front of everyone in the shop.

After the customer left, Lance slid up to the front counter, winking at Allura. He recalled the pick-up line he had thought of the other day, and tried to put on the most confident demeanor he could. “So, even though I’ve only worked at Altea Beans for a couple of days, I’ve already _Bean_ thinking about you.” His hands curled up into finger guns. “Get it?” 

Allura smiled. “Okay Lance.” She sounded like a mother amused by her child’s antics. The child being Lance. 

Well, Keith had warned him. And Allura’s response could have been worse, so Lance was satisfied enough. 

“Also, you’re here earlier today,” Allura observed. “You know that your shift doesn’t start for another half hour, right?” 

“Yup! I took my guitar here after class today to practice a little. I mean, there’s obviously a piano, but Keith isn’t here yet, and the customers could use a change of pace,” Lance replied, setting his backpack onto the nearest chair. He started unzipping his guitar case. 

At this Allura showed some interest. “How long have you been playing?” She asked. 

“Probably almost 10 years now. So I’m basically a pro,” Lance boasted. He took a seat at one of the chairs and pulled his acoustic guitar out of its case. To warm up, he quickly played a few scales and various chord progressions. 

Now for the real deal. Lance decided to play a song he had been practicing lately, inspired after seeing someone playing it on the streets. Apparently it was from some old 1990s movie, but Lance only cared about the music. There were also lyrics to the song, but he didn’t know them yet. Besides, even with guitar alone, the expression and mood of the song were already captured. Usually Lance played songs that involved mainly chords, but he had decided to try something new with this song’s fingerpicking style, and he had been impressed by how good it sounded.

Before he played the entire song, he first practiced a few of the chords that occurred it in commonly and also went through a couple sections that could be smoother. 

When he was satisfied, Lance’s fingers hovered back to the starting position and he took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, thought of his abuelita’s music, and began playing. He started by plucking four ascending notes, then a chord that was repeated throughout the song. Then the melody picked up, taking the place of where the singer would usually be. The song was somewhat cheerful, but also melancholy at the same time. Kind of...bittersweet. Which was pretty close to Lance’s own emotions at the moment.

For music to even exist in the first place, Lance was so thankful. It wasn’t magic, but the song he was playing right now reminded him of how magical it could seem. Music could make one lost in another world, and each person interpreted it differently, expressing their own feelings in their playing.

Lance plucked the last chord, savoring the notes ringing in the air until their sound faded away.

He looked back up, right arm loosely resting over the guitar and left arm falling to his side. Over the course of the song, a few customers had moved closer to listen to him and now they clapped loudly for him. Allura seemed surprised too, and when she saw Lance glancing her way she called, “That was great, Lance. You should play here more often!”

“Thanks, Allura,” Lance replied, feeling blessed by Allura’s praise. He saw that he still had a few minutes, so he decided to play the song another time. He had a small audience now, and they seemed to enjoy it. 

So once again, he got absorbed in his playing. He didn’t hear the multiple times the door jingled as more people entered, and didn’t mind as more people paused what they were doing to listen. Lance liked being the center of attention and he basked in it, playing the song as best as he could. 

When he was done, it was about time for his shift to start, so he started packing his guitar away. As he stood up, however, he spotted Keith standing at the door entrance, backpack swung over one shoulder. He had probably just caught the last part of Lance’s song. Keith’s elbows were crossed but and he seemed deep in thought, and his head was still bobbing absentmindedly to the beat of the song, even though Lance had finished playing. 

_Aha!_ Lance thought. He finished zipping his case back up and made his way over to Keith. 

“‘Sup,” Lance said.

Keith’s head stopped bobbing and it snapped up.

“Liked my guitar playing? It definitely beats your piano,” Lance teased. 

Keith regarded Lance with a stare that was hard to read. Lance stared back, waiting for answer, and noticed that Keith’s eyes were very purple and sparkly. Lance wondered if that meant Keith was an super powerful magician or something. He had heard the rumor of purple eyes being attributed to power, but he had no idea if it was actually true.

“It was okay,” Keith said, like he was choosing his words carefully.

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Just ‘okay,’ Keith? C’mon, it was at least a ‘good.’”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Okay, it was good.” He walked past Lance and over to the piano.

Well, Keith didn’t exactly seem to be in the best mood today. Lance guessed he’d find out if that was true or not depending on whether Keith pounded the piano to death again or not. 

Lance watched Keith rudely push his cat off the piano bench and take the seat. He resisted the urge to smile as the cat angrily stalked off and found a spot under a table instead. 

Speaking of familiars, where had Lola gone? Oh well, Lance decided he would worry about it later; his shift was starting now. He skimmed the room one last time and then headed over to Allura, where she passed off her cheesy apron to Lance. 

Now time for the boring part: stand behind the counter for three hours and ring up people’s orders. Yesterday he had passed the time with finger doodles. Today he felt more ambitious...so he decided to draw in people’s coffees instead. Doing magic with liquids was fun, in Lance’s opinion at least.

When the first customer during his shift came up and ordered a latte, Lance used his magic to swirl the milk in the coffee into a white crescent moon and small stars. As he handed the cup over to the person, small ripples formed on the surface, making the milky stars appear to shimmer. Lance silently admired his handiwork, and from the look on the customer’s face as they took the cup, they did too. 

Meanwhile, he heard Keith running through scales on the piano. It didn’t seem like he was putting too much force into them, which was a good sign. Angry Keith banging the piano wasn’t as fun to listen to as focused and determined Keith playing the piano.

Lance tried to draw a flower in the next customer’s coffee, but the petals ended up all blurring together. He had to will the milk back in place, but when he picked up the cup to give to the person, the petals blurred together into a mess of lines again. 

Across the room, Keith started working on a song Lance had heard enough times in the past day alone to recognize it was the same one. Luckily, Keith seemed to be in a better mood, or at least was refraining from killing the piano if he was angry. As far as Lance could tell, this time the playing seemed basically perfect, but as a musician himself he knew that much of the process involved making minute adjustments. Lance could play a chord on the guitar twenty times and only be satisfied once, maybe because the way it rang in the air or because he played it with just the right amount of force or lightness. He could get all the notes right, but he might not be satisfied until he got all the emotions and feelings of the piece right. The flowing dynamics, abrupt changes in tempo, all that needed practice too.

He looked longingly at the piano, and at the way Keith’s fingers seemed to glide over the keys effortlessly. Lance imagined his abuelita sitting on the bench instead, humming as she brought notes written on paper fluttering to life. 

The door jingled and Lance cleared his head, ready to take another person’s order instead of getting all nostalgic again. But instead of walking to the counter, the person almost sprinted across the room, cradling something in their arms as they did. It looked like...a potted plant?

“Keith! Keith!” They called, coming to a stop by the piano. Several heads turned up to glance at the person, as they weren’t exactly being quiet. 

Lance stared at the person’s choppy light brown hair and round, owlish glasses before finally recognizing who it was. He had heard enough about her and seen her a few times in the hallways. Pidge had apparently skipped two grades because she was so smart, which was, well, dang. 

He heard Keith stop playing piano to listen to what Pidge was saying. She talked animatedly, and kept gesturing at the plant, which she now held out in front of Keith. Keith narrowed his eyes, but his expression soon morphed into surprise, then annoyance, though the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He shoved the plant back at Pidge, who was laughing. Lance was tempted to use a spell to hear what they were saying, but decided he shouldn’t eavesdrop. 

Lance saw Pidge put the plant on top of the piano, but Keith determinedly placed it back in her hands. She shrugged, as if to say _your loss._

Then, before Lance knew it, she was approaching the counter and Lance had to act like he had not been spying on them at all. 

“Hello! What can I get for you today?” Lance asked with as much enthusiasm as he could. 

Pidge adjusted her glasses, though she didn’t even bother looking at the board. “I’ll have a vanilla latte, extra sweet,” she requested. 

Lance set to work on her drink. “So what’s the deal with that plant?” He casually asked over his shoulder. “I saw you talking to Keith about it, and you seemed very excited.”

“Oh, you know Keith? I’m Pidge, by the way. My family owns a flower shop down the street, so I work with a lot of plants. Anyway,” Pidge began, sounding eager to tell her story, “I finally got a spell to work. So this hydrangea plant—it hasn’t bloomed yet, by the way, so that’s why it looks kinda ugly—”

“Hey!” Came a snarky reply. Lance almost dropped the cup he was currently adding milk to. 

“Well, that spoils the surprise,” Pidge said. “I finally got a successful spell, and now I can have speaking plants!”

“That’s actually pretty cool,” Lance said, leaning over the counter to get a closer look. 

“Get your stinky face away from my healthy leaves,” the plant said arrogantly. If plants could move, this one would probably be crossing its elbows and pointedly turning away from Lance right now. 

“My face does not stink! In fact, I use the best lotion to make sure it smells as good as possible!” Lance glared at the plant indignantly. 

Pidge laughed. “I was gonna give this plant to Keith, but he didn’t like the comments it was making either.”

“Who would?” Lance replied, still resentful. He finished up making Pidge’s latte and handed it over to her. 

“Okay, so I forgot that plants would have temperaments when I started working with the spell, but think about it. Now the flower shop will have extra business if I could make the plants speak. The flowers could relay personalized messages,” Pidge said matter-of-factly, pushing her glasses up. 

“In your dreams,” the plant muttered angrily.

“That’s a cool idea, provided the plants are nice about it,” Lance agreed, but not before an thought popped up in his head. “Okay, this is hilarious. So just imagine, a customer wants the flower to say ‘Happy Birthday’ and instead, because it’s moody, the flowers says ‘You’re one year closer to death, bitch.’” 

“Oh my god, I would actually pay to see that,” Pidge smirked, glasses glinting dangerously. “But you have a point. My idea probably wouldn’t even end up working because all these plants have a mind of their own and stuff like that would probably happen. We’d lose business instead of gaining it.” Pidge said, though she still seemed excited over her spell’s success. 

“Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you something,” Lance remembered. “So you’re friends with Keith right?”

“Yup,” Pidge said, putting a temporary muting spell on the plant just as it began speaking another snarky sentence.

“Okay, so do you know if he only teaches young kids, or?”

“I’m not sure,” Pidge admitted. “Why, are you interested?” She asked.

“Maybe,” Lance replied. “I heard from someone else that works here that he teaches for free and since my family is somewhat low on money, I saw an opportunity.”

“Well, if you’re interested enough, I’m sure Keith would be willing to do it,” Pidge answered thoughtfully. “Anyway, I should probably get back to the shop now, but I’ll see you around.”

“See ya,” Lance waved goodbye, and saw that Pidge took at least 5 packets of sweetener before she actually left Altea Beans, plant in one arm and sweetener packets and coffee crammed in the other.

Lance gaped at her from where he stood. Well, someone would be staying up late tonight, as in probably at least three or four in the morning. Either that or Pidge just needed a really big sugar boost. If he had to guess, Pidge was probably the type of person that lived off of coffee, or more specifically, very sugary coffee.

Once she had left, Lance found his eyes drifting towards the corner of the café, drawn in to Keith. For a reason Lance was unable to place, Keith seemed to have a warm glow to him whenever he played piano. It was like a fuzzy magical aura, except Keith didn’t appear to be actually trying to use magic to create it. The more Lance stared, the more the aura reminded him of a nebula, as if Keith were floating in space, surrounded by twinkling stars.

Lance blinked. Or maybe he was just seeing things. Either way, watching Keith play was hypnotizing in a way. Even just listening to the music was entrancing, it was so good. Though Lance tried to be self-confident on the outside, he felt a twinge of jealousy. Did Lance look that way to other people when he played guitar? Probably not. But watching Keith also made Lance more determined to try even harder the next time he did pick up his guitar, or when he would finally ask Keith if he could get free lessons.

The minutes ticked away, fading into hours. Lance dutifully served customers drinks, fingers drumming impatiently in between orders. It was starting to get late, and the people in the coffee shop got more and more sparse. Soon there were only a few people, either studying or having a late evening coffee. Eventually Keith finished practicing for the day, and rose from his piano seat to pack his music books. Seeing that there were no new customers, Lance seized the opportunity. 

Keith was shouldering his bag when he glanced up and saw Lance walking towards him. 

“Hey man,” Lance began, feeling awkward. He internally groaned at the way his voice sounded—where was his self-assured personality when he needed it? “So I know we might not exactly be on friendliest terms right now, and we barely know each other, but I think everyone knows that you’re really good at piano.”

Keith looked surprised to hear this, despite Lance having given the same compliment the day before. Keith, Lance noticed, could use a lot more cheering up in his life. The warm aura Keith had earlier was gone, disappearing the moment his fingers had left the piano. 

“I saw you teaching some kid lessons the other day…” Lance continued, “And I asked Allura and stuff and she says you give them free?”

Keith nodded wordlessly.

“Wow, those students must be lucky to have you then,” Lance said. “So, uh, you probably saw me playing guitar earlier, much better than your piano skills, obviously,” he joked.

Keith scoffed, though it had no hatred behind it. 

“But I didn’t want to talk about guitar. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about lessons. For the piano. For me,” Lance tried to form coherent sentences. Sheesh, what was the worst that could happen? Why did he feel so nervous?

Keith silently stared at Lance. The longer without a reply, the more uncomfortable the latter boy was becoming. 

“Keith? Mullet? Could I get an answer?” Lance asked anxiously.

Keith sighed. It was a long sigh, the kind of sigh one gives when they aren’t quite sure how to respond. There was a movement out of the corner of his eye, and Lance saw Keith fiddling with...were those fingerless gloves? He hadn’t noticed those before. Maybe Keith put them on after practicing.

“Okayyyyyyyyyyy,” Keith dragged out. “I honestly don’t know. I...I actually have a competition coming up, so I’ve been working extra hard for that so I can do well. And I already have enough students. And most of them are young, so I don’t have experience teaching people that are more my age. And I don’t even know if this would work out. Like, we might not get along that well.”

“Oh,” Lance nodded, trying to look understanding. Keith did have logical reasons, but Lance was disappointed anyway.

“But,” Keith continued. “If you really, _actually_ want me to teach you, I will.”

“Ohhhh,” Lance replied, eagerly this time. So there was a flip side, a very good flip side, that Keith would still be willing to do it. 

“Yes,” Lance said excitedly, not realizing he was about to ramble. “That would be amazing, Keith. I really, _actually_ want you to teach me. Free lessons would be great, because my family is pretty big and we don’t exactly have the best income right now which is also why I’m doing this part time job here, but yes I would definitely want lessons from you.” Then he added: “Please.”

Keith took a deep breath. Lance could see the conflict in the other boy’s eyes. Then Keith’s cat tugged on his pants, and a silent conversation passed between them. When Keith looked back up, he seemed more resolute. Maybe he had really understood how Lance had felt in those moments, like Lance was giving a final request for help. Maybe he saw Lance’s enthusiasm, and genuine interest for lessons. Maybe it was just that Keith’s cat was on Lance’s side, and had offered a final word that had helped Keith decide. Whatever the reason, Keith seemed to be satisfied with what he was about to say next.

“Alright,” Keith finally said, looking at Lance with his magical dark purple eyes. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes!” Lance pumped a fist into the air, not caring how childish he looked. He stared back into Keith’s sparkling violet eyes. It was like looking deep into a galaxy full of bright twinkling stars. And Lance smiled at Keith, smiling the biggest smile he had in a long time. Keith’s eyes reflected the brightness back at Lance, and his smile only broadened. _Piano lessons, here I come._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, feedback is really appreciated, especially constructive criticism. Thanks for reading!


	4. A Learning Experience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has his first lesson with Lance. Keith also learns that Lance can be very unproductive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter seems a little slow, I'm going to try and work on better pacing in the future.

Keith found himself unable to erase the image of Lance’s smiling face from his mind. His thoughts kept wandering back to how hopeful Lance had looked last night, and how happy he had been when Keith had told him that he would teach him. 

And it was annoying Keith to no end. 

It was even more annoying because Lance’s enthusiasm was rubbing off on him, and Keith found himself looking forward to seeing him again after school today. That, and Keith was having a harder time keeping his usual flat-mouthed expression. 

“Keith, how do you think you did on the calculus test today?” Pidge asked from beside him, startling him out of his thoughts. They were sitting at the one of the corner tables in the cafeteria, eating lunch in peace. There were always the show-offs that tended to sit together near the center of the room, usually using their magic do things that looked cool, but were actually easy. Keith could probably blow away their talents with his powerful spellcasting, but he didn’t like the attention that came with it. Also, even powerful magic sadly couldn’t help Keith with his steadily dropping math grade.

...which was why math was a subject Keith preferred not to think about. He liked the subject, but lately he hadn’t been doing very well in the class. The test he had taken earlier was a reminder of that, but Keith didn’t know what to do. He had studied, after all. It just hadn’t worked.

Pidge took his silence as a bad sign. “Well, there’s always next time, right? Besides, you have a high grade right now so this test probably won’t bring it down much,” she reassured him.

Keith shrugged, putting a spoonful of the bland school pasta into his mouth. “Right now my grade is probably lower than what you would think, but whatever.”

“Well I know piano is important to you, but sometimes you gotta give up a little more time to study,” Pidge said matter-of-factly.

“I did study,” Keith stubbornly grumbled. “The tests are just hard.”

“Is that what you said at the start of the semester?”

Keith groaned. “Can we take about something else instead?”

“Oh yeah, so I’m assuming you’ve met Lance,” Pidge brought up. 

This elicited another groan out of Keith. “How could I not? He basically just showed up to get a job at the café and the next thing I know he’s trying to be the better musician or whatever with his guitar.”

“Maybe he’s just competitive or whatever,” Pidge pointed out. “I was talking to him the other day while you were practicing and he actually liked my idea of talking plants, unlike you,” she taunted.

“Okay, but your plants are rude, so of course it’s a bad idea,” Keith countered.

“That was one plant, Keith! Imagine the business if I could get all the plants to actually have good manners! Then they could send personalized messages to people, and we could charge more for them, but people would obviously want them.” Pidge explained excitedly.

“I’m sure you’re not the first person to think of this idea,” Keith muttered. “And how would you get the plants to actually be nice anyway?”

“Well, Lance brought that up too. So far I don’t have a solution. But I’m thinking about it,” Pidge said. “Speaking of Lance, he seemed to be interested in piano lessons with you? Said he saw you teaching some kids and was curious to see if you’d teach him as well.”

“Yeah, he already asked me to teach him. And of course I said yes because how could I say no to him when he looks at me like that?” Keith sighed, poking at his lunch with his fork. 

But a funny expression was already forming on Pidge’s face. “What do you mean, when he looks at you like that?” She prodded.

Okay, Keith really needed to get the image of Lance’s hopeful eyes out of his mind. “He just seemed to really want those lessons, which made it hard to decline,” Keith replied, determinedly not saying anything about the way Lance looked at him yesterday.

“Don’t you have a competition coming up? Another student would mean less time, and you still need to keep your math grade up.” Pidge commented.

“That’s what I told Lance, but…” Keith just didn’t have the heart to say no. 

“But what?”

“Nothing. I can just have fewer lessons with him before the competition, and pick up the pace after,” Keith decided.

“Okay Keith. But don’t forget about calculus,” Pidge sang. “You wouldn’t want to limit your math grades!”

“That has to be the worst pun I’ve heard yet. Just eat your lunch,” Keith complained.

“Hey, it’s not my fault that you have to have at least one vegetable on your tray if you buy school lunch. I mean, look at these peas. They look shriveled and nasty,” Pidge said defiantly.

“And you’re the one who likes everything green.”

“Not everything, just plants, Keith. And I don’t like eating plants,” Pidge reminded.

The bell rang, and Pidge stood up from the table gleefully. “Looks like I didn’t have enough time! Guess I’ll just have to dump these peas in the trash,” She said, depositing the contents of her lunch tray with more force than necessary into the trash can. 

Keith’s mind was more occupied with other thoughts, anyway. Throughout his entire magic history class, he kept his eyes on the clock, waiting as time excruciatingly ticked away. Thankfully Keith had good control of fire magic, or his eyes might have burnt a hole in the empty desk in from of him. In English, Keith’s boredom further intensified, and he spent the hour absentmindedly drumming his fingers on his desk to the melody of his piano competition. But that only reminded him of Lance, and how today Keith had less homework. Which meant that today was probably a good day for their first lesson. 

When school finally let out for the day, Keith pretty much booked it to Altea Beans. Usually Lance was already there when he arrived, but today Keith hadn’t stopped by the flower shop that Pidge’s family owned like he usually did after school. 

There were few people in the shop, as it was currently well past lunch but too early for a late afternoon snack. Allura was at the counter—she normally worked earlier shifts now that Lance was available to fill in the job for her after school. “Want anything for free since I’m still working?” she asked. 

Keith considered the offer, but he wasn’t very hungry and preferred coffee in the morning. “I’ll pass,” he replied. “Gotta practice anyway.”

If he was going to give Lance his first lesson today, he needed time before the lesson for his own practicing and also to figure out how he would teach Lance. Which was going to be a problem, since Keith only dealt with very young kids so far. Still, Keith viewed it more as a challenge, and Keith was not one to give up on challenges. 

As usual, Keith sat down at the piano bench, where Mittens was waiting, from when he dropped her off at the coffee shop before school. Before he could sit, he had to push his familiar off the bench, which had become a favorite spot for her, because its height was just right for catching the afternoon rays of sunlight. After she muttered some rude words at him (which was also typical), Keith warmed up and moved on to his competition piece. He was about halfway into his first run-through when Lance arrived. Keith could tell the person entering was Lance because his loud voice cut through the air.

“Good afternoon, Allura!” he greeted cheerily. 

“Hello! Where’s Lola?” she asked. 

“What, so you like my familiar more than me?” Lance said, petulance evident in his voice. “Anyway, she’s staying at home today. The coffee shop is kinda boring for her.”

 _Focus,_ Keith had to remind himself. _Focus on the music, not on the conversation. Play the notes. Play the dynamics, and get the tempos correct. But also play with expression, because the judges won’t want a robotic performance._ In the end, focusing proved to be easier, as Allura eventually went into the back room and Lance started his shift. Without her to talk to, there was no conversation for Keith to try to listen into. 

It was just him and the piano. And the small chatter of customers in the background, but the sound of Keith’s music drowned it out.

So Keith practiced, and kept practicing until he felt satisfied for the day. 

Then he remembered that he still had to teach Lance, which meant he had to go ask Lance if having a first lesson today was something Lance was fine with. Which meant social interaction, which Keith didn’t want to do. 

But it had to be done at some point, so after Keith finished packing his own music books back into his backpack he was trudging up to the counter. Lance lazily watched as Keith walked up to him, like he was curious as to why Keith would do such in the first place. 

“Hi.” Keith said, because that was a proper greeting. Right? Hello sounded funny, and hey sounded too casual. 

“Are you here for food, or coffee, or just to brag about how good your piano playing was, because, yes it’s good, but no need to rub it in my face.” Lance gave Keith an unimpressed look.

“Okay, I haven’t done that yet, so why would I do that now,” Keith said.

“I dunno. Maybe it’s because you always have that ‘I’m a cool kid’ air to you,” Lance muttered. “So are you here to order something then?”

“No, actually, when does your shift end?” Keith asked.

At this Lance perked up. “Why do you want to know?” He countered. 

“Yesterday you asked me for piano lessons. Today I have the time to do it, so if you’re also free when your shift ends then we could?” Keith said uncertainly. 

“Hmmm,” Lance considered for a moment. “It ends at seven, and I don’t have too much homework today. Except magic history. Oh my god, I just remembered that I have a test tomorrow.”

“I hate that class too,” Keith emphatically said. Magic history was the worst. All Keith wanted to do was learn the spells and potions and whatever magical stuff he could. Learning about the history behind magic instigated boredom nine times out of ten and Keith usually forgot the information shortly after anyway. 

“I guess I have time though. It would just be an hour, right?” Lance verified.

“If that’s what you want, yeah. I didn’t really have a set timing, but I guess an hour is what I usually do with most of my students,” Keith replied. “So when you’re done then?”

“Aw, Keith, you’re gonna wait a whole hour for me to finish?” Lance teased.

“No. I’m going to spend unnecessary time to go home and then spend more time to come back to the shop right after,” Keith answered with as much of a deadpan expression as he could give.

“Okay, since you were so rude to me I’m going to have to _rudely_ ask you to leave now because there’s a customer,” Lance glared, but it looked more like a stubborn child’s pout.

Keith raised his eyebrows at Lance. “I’ll just go do homework at a nearby table then,” he supplied.

“Wait, Keith! You’re a senior too, right?” Lance asked, and then took the customer’s order.

Keith waited until Lance had run up the person’s order before replying. “Yeah, why?”

“So you also have magic history test tomorrow. Are you doing well in the class?” Lance questioned slyly. 

“I guess. I just don’t like the class, but I can’t fail it,” Keith explained. 

“Alright, that’s it, you’re studying with me today,” Lance said, grabbing Keith’s arm and yanking him closer to the counter, like he expected Keith to run away the moment Lance spoke those words.

“Lance,” Keith warned. 

“Nope. Get your textbook and notes and bring them to the side here. Besides, I get bored during work and if I can get some studying done that’ll be even better,” Lance ordered, like there was no other option. 

“Okayyyy,” Keith sighed reluctantly. He normally studied on his own, but once again Lance was proving himself determined to drag Keith into this. 

Lance dropped his hold on Keith’s arm so he could grab the study materials. Keith suddenly felt himself missing the heat from Lance’s hand, but decidedly ignored it as he pulled a notebook and heavy textbook out of his backpack. When he returned to the counter, Lance also had a notebook out, but no matching textbook.

“Lance, did you ask me to study with you because you forgot to take your textbook home?” Keith asked. 

“What? Nah, why would I do that?” Lance glared defiantly at Keith. Keith shrugged, but set the items down on the side of the counter anyway.

Which is how he ended up spending an hour “studying” with Lance. The time actually passed by fairly quickly, but that was probably because half the time what they ended up doing couldn’t even be considered studying. First of all, Lance spend a good ten minutes complaining about Mr. Iverson, like questioning how he even got to be the head of the magic department at the school when he could barely teach. Then, there was of course time spent where Lance had to serve customers, and then when he wasn’t serving, Lance kept getting distracted. Keith himself wasn’t very fond of the subject they were reviewing for, but he had been hoping for a good, solid, study session. He was sadly disappointed. It wasn’t like he accomplished nothing during that hour, but Keith knew he’d still have to study more on his own when he got home later. He doubted Lance’s grades were bad, but Keith really hoped that Lance would be a more focused student when it came to the piano later. At this point, Keith just wanted to get home. 

Keith was trying not to pull out his hair at a pun Lance was saying (it was related to magic history, of course) when Allura came pushing through the back door. 

“Well that’s a first,” Allura said, taking in Keith’s exasperated expression and Lance laughing at his own pun.

“What’s a first, Allura?” Lance asked, glancing at the clock. “Oh, is my shift done? Here,” Lance said, passing the apron to Allura as she went to operate the register.

“I know that Keith normally likes to study on his own. Now that I think about it, I don’t think Keith has ever studied with other people before unless he was forced to” Allura stated.

Lance grinned sheepishly. “Well, I might have roped him into doing it with me.” 

Allura sighed. “What did I expect...but if you two want to study more, feel free to sit at one of the tables. I could also make you a nice cup of coffee,” she offered.

“That sounds go—jeez, Keith, what are you doing?!?” While Lance was about to head over to the nearest table, Keith had already grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip and was dragging the boy over to the piano. 

“You can go study when you get home. We are having our lesson right now. The sooner we finish, the better,” Keith said, sending a glare at Lance. 

“If you wanted to get rid of me that quickly then you shouldn’t have agreed to do lessons or study with me in the first place,” Lance grumbled, but nonetheless allowed himself to be dragged to the piano.

“That’s not what I meant,” Keith groaned.

“Oh yeah? Then what did you mean, Keith?”  
“I’m just tired, okay? And I still need to study more later because studying with you is way less productive and if I hear another magic pun I’m going to bash my head into this piano,” Keith retorted. 

“I don’t think that’ll be good for you or the piano,” Lance said, but his voice was quieter now and Keith couldn’t help but feel like he had said something wrong. But they were both at the piano now and Keith was not going to give up on this lesson.

“You should probably sit at the bench. I’ll pull out another chair for myself,” Keith said. 

Lance nodded, and stepped forward towards the bench. Keith felt a tug on his hand, and realized he was still gripping Lance’s wrist. Hurriedly, Keith dropped his hand and went to grab a chair to sit on, hoping Lance hadn’t noticed their prolonged contact.

“Uhh, okay, so what do you know?” Keith began.

“What do you mean, what do I know?” Lance narrowed his eyes at Keith. 

“What do you know _about the piano and anything related to it and how to play it, Lance,_ ” Keith clarified frustratedly. 

“Maybe some guitar knowledge that would apply to the piano as well?”

“That works, I guess…”

“Okay, so I know what scales are, what chords are, chord progressions and that kinda music theory stuff. And I can read music, obviously. And I know where all the notes are on the piano but I can’t actually play it? Well I can, kinda? Just really badly because I don’t know how to do anything.” Lance tried to be helpful. It worked enough so that Keith was able to grasp somewhat of a starting point for the lesson.

“Could you try to play a c major scale? Just one octave? With both hands if you think you can, and however fast you can go?” Keith suggested. 

“Hmmmm, okay.” Lance stared at the piano determinedly before hovering both of his hands over the keys and playing two C’s. The scale sounded okay, albeit a bit slow and clunky, until Lance reached a point where he ran out of fingers, and then there was a long pause as he repositioned his hands and continued the scale. This happened on the way down too. Keith cringed, but Lance’s playing was a lot better than how all his other younger students’ had been at first, so it would take a little less time to teach him the basics. 

“Okay, so what you’re going to want to do is cross your thumb under your third or fourth finger when you’re doing scales.” Keith demonstrated. 

Lance tried to copy Keith’s motions, though it wasn’t nearly as good. “How do you play it so quickly?” he groaned. 

“Lots of practice,” Keith replied wryly. “I’m sure whatever guitar stuff you do would be hard for me at first too.”

“Of course, for I am the master of guitar,” Lance boasted. 

“Shut up, and try again,” Keith said. Lance obliged, but there was something off about the way he was trying to play the scale. 

“It’s better if you curve your fingers like this,” Keith explained, making sure that only the tips of his fingers hit the piano. 

Again, Lance tried to copy, but it just wasn’t enough. “Like this,” Keith said exasperatedly, taking Lance’s hand in his own and curving Lance’s fingers just so. Lance’s hand was warm, and nice, and the pads of his fingers were slightly calloused, probably from pressing down the steel guitar strings. But Keith had other things to think about. Like this lesson. “Okay, now try to keep your fingers like this,” he instructed.

Lance got about halfway through before his fingers started losing their curved shape again. They’d have to work on that, and Keith was wistful if he thought one lesson alone would do it. 

“Oh yeah, do you have a piano at home?” Keith asked. 

“Yup,” Lance nodded. Keith recalled Lance mentioning it the other day, about how they had a piano but nobody in his family used it. He was a little jealous, honestly, because Lance didn’t even play piano and his family had one. Keith had to come to the shop every day, which wasn’t that bad, but still…

“Okay, so I don’t have anything with me today but I’ll get a study book for you,” Keith said.

“A study book! Please tell me that’s not what it sounds like. There’s no way you’d have to actually study stuff for music, right?” Lance whined.

“There is theory, but nah. It’s just a book that has a bunch of short exercises in it, and each piece focuses on helping you improve some aspect of your technique, like, playing arpeggios for instance,” Keith explained. “I figured that if you slowly get through the entire book that will help you with actual lyrical pieces.”

“O...kay?” Lance still looked confused. 

“It’s fine, you’d probably have to actually see the stuff to understand it,” Keith shrugged.

“Anyway, hmmm, I probably need to find a really easy song that you could learn.” Thankfully, Keith had the foresight to bring a few of his really old music books and some books that he used with his other students. He flipped through one of them before picking a page. “How about this one?” 

And so the lesson progressed fairly smoothly. Keith did not notice how Lance’s fingers were long and slender and optimal for playing the piano and Keith was not envious at all. Keith’s own fingers were on the shorter side, which made it hard to play any stretch of notes farther than an octave apart. But Lance’s. Goddamn. If he actually got good at piano, that would be a nice advantage. 

Unlike their hour of studying, the hour at the piano passed by a lot quicker and on-task. There were no witty puns made by Lance, and the boy seemed really determined with the piano. They even went slightly over an hour, and by the time the session finished Lance was able to play a simple melody from the book. It was promising, and Keith was actually looking forward to another lesson. 

As they were packing up, a thought occurred to Keith. “Hey Lance,” he said casually. “Could I have your number?”

Lance’s eyebrow shot up, sky high. “Wow, Keith. I didn't take you as that forward of a guy. Are you not even going to buy me a coffee first at least?” 

Keith blushed. “Just so I can properly coordinate a schedule for lessons,” he hastily explained. That was it. Not like he actually wanted Lance’s number for other reasons.

“Oh yeah. Yup, yupyupyupyup.” Lance took Keith’s phone from him and typed in his number. Keith received his phone back with a new contact in it, labeled “Lance is the Best.” Keith huffed at that but didn’t change the name. He typed a quick “Hello, this is Keith” to Lance so the boy would have his number too. 

“Alright, see you tomorrow!” Lance waved as he left the shop. Keith gave a half-hearted wave back, acknowledging Lance’s departure.

 _Mittens, where are you,_ Keith groaned. There was no response. Five minutes of searching later, Keith found his familiar curled up behind a plant in a separate corner of the shop, fast asleep. With one swift kick from Keith, Mittens was woken from her slumber. 

_You done?_ she stretched once before walking towards the door. Keith left the shop, but not before glancing down the street. Lance was nowhere in sight, so he probably left already. Got a ride home or something. Sighing, Keith hopped on his motorcycle, put Mittens in the carrier, and sped off down the street. He would still have studying to do, but for some reason Keith now found himself unable to be annoyed at the time he’d lost studying with Lance. It was probably the boy’s ever-cheerful aura rubbing off on him. 

Sheesh. 

Keith hoped his own moody personality wasn’t doing the same to Lance. Probably not, since all Keith ever seemed to see on Lance’s face was a smile. A very bright smile, one that lit up like the stars. With a smile that bright, no wonder Keith couldn’t get it out of his mind.

When he got home, Keith checked his texts. His stupid, “Hello, this is Keith,” was still at the top of the screen, but below it Lance had sent a barrage of new messages. 

**L:** Keith you have to help meeee  
**L:** my brain cant absorb all this magic history stuff and imma fail the test tmrw

Further down was a picture of Lance angrily holding up his textbook.

 **L:** if i could do fire magic properly i would burn this book and just tell iverson i lost it but im scared that ill burn my house down too

Keith allowed himself a small smile as he read the texts before typing a response.

 **K:** Sorry but no, I’m going to study on my own. That’s why you don’t cram.  
**K:** I could help with burning that book though. My fire magic is pretty good.

A few seconds later, Keith received a response.

 **L:** keithhhhh dont do this to me  
**L:** and really? ill definitely have to take you up on that offer sometime

Needless to say, texting is also not productive. Keith did not end up studying much that night either, but he’d be lying if he said he regretted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna try to pick up the pace next chapter and have more Keith/Lance interactions.
> 
> As usual, feedback is appreciated (especially on the pacing of the story because I suck at good pacing) but thanks for reading!


	5. Atmospheric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just setting the mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was by far my favorite chapter so far to write. As it turns out, when your story takes place in a magical setting, you get to make a lot of normally unrealistic events happen. Also, this chapter is a bit of cliché and a LOT of self-indulgence. Oops.

Pink.

A little bit of red, but a lot of pink.

...was what Lance saw when he entered Altea Beans that tuesday afternoon. The entire coffee shop seemed shrouded in pink mist, and all the tables and chairs had a pink hue to them. Even the piano looked like it had a sheen of rose-colored paint over it. 

Even stranger, none of the customers seemed bothered as they ambled around the café and chatted excitedly amongst themselves. Okay, at least the people weren’t pink. Mostly. But pink tendrils of air occasionally curled around them and made part of their clothing seem especially blushy. Overall, it just looked like Valentine’s day had come early. 

Lance stepped up to the counter. “Uh, Allura? What in the world is going on with the shop today? Isn’t it just a _little_ too pink?”

Allura’s eyes widened. “You can see that?” she squeaked. 

“...am I not supposed to?” Lance asked. 

Allura laughed nervously. “No, you aren’t. Usually only magicians that are very experienced with this type of magic can tell when somebody is trying to set a particular mood.”

Lance scoffed. “Obviously I’m experienced. Anyway, you’re trying to set a mood? What’s that?” 

“Well, I’m practicing changing the atmosphere with my magic. Like, creating a bright and cheerful, or a dark and dreary mood. Or, in this case, a somewhat romantic mood. I’m trying to make it less obvious, though, since you noticed when you shouldn’t have.”

“What can I say, I’m an expert at romance,” Lance boasted. “Anyway, why romantic? What’s the occasion?” he wiggled his eyebrows.

“Nothing, nothing,” Allura waved it off, although Lance got the feeling that she wasn’t quite telling the truth. “Don’t worry about it. The mood isn’t supposed to affect you unless I want it to, and I’m pretty sure that I don’t want you to suddenly feel attracted to a table or chair.”

“Yeah, I would not chair-ish that moment either,” Lance joked, and received an unimpressed look from Allura.

“Anyway, it’s probably for the best that you refrain from telling anyone else about the atmosphere magic I’m practicing if they are unable to see it. I’m trying to make it as inconspicuous as possible,” Allura hurriedly added when she noticed that Lance was about to walk away from the counter. For once, Lance didn’t have a shift to work today, and was only at the shop because he and Keith had arranged to have another lesson.

“Okay, if that’s you want!” Lance cheerily agreed, but something was definitely off with Allura’s words. Lance knew she wasn’t speaking the entire truth, but decided not to push it. 

He dropped his backpack off at an empty chair and tried to ignore the all the pink, but it was hard. Really. Especially when he was one of the only people in the room that could see it. 

Lance sat down at the piano. It had been a little less than a week after his last lesson with Keith, and since then he had dusted off the piano in his own house and tried to improve his technique. Today, however, was going to be distracting. Was he going to have to play music while staring at these pink keys the entire day? 

Lance was a romantic, yes, but not like this! 

At least, their lesson would not be over for another couple hours. Apparently Keith had “stuff” to do after school today, whatever that meant. So maybe Allura would be done practicing her stuff by then, he hoped. Was she even practicing now, or just maintaining the atmosphere? Hmmm, maybe it was like...one day have everything be all pink and the next day have everything be completely grey. Maybe the next time he walked into the shop it would be all depressing. 

Or maybe Allura was watching in satisfaction at Lance being uncomfortable. Like, Lance tried to hit on her, which she clearly didn’t enjoy, so this was revenge? He peeked an eye over the piano to where Allura was at the counter, but she didn’t seem to be basking in glory or anything. Not that she seemed like the person to do that anyway. 

Well, he was here now, so he might as well practice some stuff before Keith got here, so Lance didn’t seem like an incompetent piano loser. Admittedly, he had probably already done that last lesson, but he could still try.

Lance practiced what Keith had told him to work on and then moved to a table to do homework. He glanced at the clock. He still had an hour before Keith arrived. An excruciating hour of trying to figure out how today’s math lesson worked and then slowly work through each homework question. And do it while all the papers and textbooks that he was staring at were pink. Lance felt like someone had applied lipstick to his eyes. Ugh.

To make matters worse, Lance was aware of each time someone entered or left the shop, aware of each time the birdsong jingled throughout the shop. He keep looking up at the sound, but none of the people entering were Keith. Time was great. Passed quickly when you wanted it to move slowly, but it was slow as molasses when you wanted it to fly by. 

Stupid math. It’s not like he would use any of this info in real life anyway. Stupid, stupid pink. All of the pink was probably worming its way into Lance’s brain because for some reason he felt a little more affectionate than usual today. Wow, that piano in the corner was looking gorgeous and was such a pretty shade of pink. Pink. Right. _Okay, snap out of it, Lance. You are not going to be attracted to inanimate objects._

“Allura,” Lance began as he approached the counter the second time that day. “Is there a way to stop this? I think your magic really is affecting me. Wow, you look pretty. Okay, ignore that, it’s probably just the magic brainwashing me.”

Allura’s smirked. “You could just go outside and get a breath of fresh air,” she suggested. “You do look a bit...woozy.” 

Lance wondered how Allura was able to bear the pink atmosphere. “It feels like when I’m tipsy except now I’m also way too aware of every single stupid shade of pink. But that’s a good idea. I’m going outside right now.” Lance bolted for the door. 

A rainbow of colors greeted him outside. Lance felt dizzy with relief. He could see everything properly now, or until he went back inside. Maybe he’d just wait out here for an hour until his lesson. He took a seat close to the café window, at a table shaded by an umbrella. This felt nice. Not productive, but nice. Lance propped his legs up on a nearby chair and admired how pretty the blue sky was for once and was cooled by the afternoon fall breeze. Man, he could stare at this for ages. It was calm and soothing and much easier on his eyes.

\---

“Lance.”

A hand was on his shoulder. It was nice and comforting. Lance covered the hand with his own and rested his face on top both hands. He leaned into the person’s arm. Warmth engulfed him. 

“Lance!” The person said louder, shaking his shoulders and jostling his intertwined fingers. 

Lance jolted awake, dropping the person’s hand. Dang, had he fallen asleep? He wiped his mouth, but thankfully there was no drool. Which was good, because he had fallen asleep. Outside. For anyone walking by to see. 

Then Lance slowly looked up. “Shit!” he exclaimed. He was met by dark purple eyes and an all-too-familiar mullet. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, had he just sleepily _held Keith’s hand?_ “Oh my god, this is so embarrassing,” he muttered. For some reason, Keith’s face also flushed red. But that couldn’t be right. Lance was the one being embarrassed here, not Keith. “I am so, so, sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I was half asleep!” Lance tried to explain.

Someone cleared their throat. Lance glanced to the side. Woah. A second hot person. Wait, that would mean that he also thought Keith was hot, which he definitely did not. It was just remnants of the café atmosphere doing things to his head. 

“Why hello,” Lance said to the other person with their very obvious muscles. “The name’s Lance, but you can call me anyti—”

“Lance,” Keith interrupted. “This is Shiro. My _brother._ Shiro, this is Lance, my newest student.”

Lance almost choked. “Shit! I’m so sorry.” Then, to Keith, “Dude, I just hit on your brother. This is so humiliating.” The longer Lance stayed out here, the worse it got. 

“I so badly wish I knew how to erase someone’s memory,” he muttered. Then both Keith and Shiro wouldn’t have to remember this horrible, stupid incident anymore.

Keith apparently heard him, because he let out a chuckle. “I guess it’s good that you don’t. Because at this rate, you’d probably try to erase ours and end up erasing your own. Though that honestly might be okay too.”

“Shut it, Mullet.”

Lance stood up and pushed past them into the shop, where he was greeted with a blast of...pink. Right. He had forgotten about that. But he had remembered Allura telling him how powerful magicians could sometimes detect the weird atmosphere. He took a sideways glance at Keith and Shiro, but their expressions stayed the same. Which meant Lance was stuck in this pink hellhole all alone. What a day. 

But then he had to get shattered again when he saw Shiro walk up to the counter where Allura was and order a coffee. And was Allura—was she giggling at Shiro? Was she flirting at Shiro? Shiro was turning red, which didn’t seem possible, considering how everything Lance was seeing was already some shade of red or pink. Okay, except the people, which was good, because if the people starting turning red Lance would probably go running outside again. 

Keith must have noticed how Lance was gaping at the two by the counter. 

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I hate to ruin it for you, but Allura’s totally into Shiro and he likes her back.”

To tell the truth, Lance had seen this coming. Allura was beautiful and Shiro was hot as heck, so they were basically meant for each other.

“It’s not like I had a chance with her anyway,” Lance said, before a realization dawned on him.

“Dude! Allura totally did the mood thing for Shiro! I’m calling it now, that’s why everything is so pink. She’s probably gonna take him into the back room and seduce him or something,” Lance theorized.

Keith gave him a blank look. “What mood thing.”

“Uh Keith, the pink?” Lance looked expectantly at Keith before remembering that it was only visible to himself and Allura. 

“Pink?” But the gears were turning in Keith’s head too. “Is Allura trying to use magic to change the atmosphere of the shop? That’s probably why everything looked slightly different today,” Keith figured out.

“Yes! The pink!” Lance said excitedly. “It looks like someone spilled a gigantic bag of makeup in here and I want to rip my eyes out.”

“Now that you mention it, it does look slightly pink. But basically normal.” Keith shrugged.

“Noooo, Keith,” Lance whined, though he could tell from the look on Keith’s face that he couldn’t see as much of the color as Lance. 

But then Keith seemed to have a revelation too. “Okay, so I usually drop off my cat here before I go to school in the morning,” he started. “Also, I already knew that Shiro liked Allura.”

Keith leaned into to whisper something in Lance’s ear. “So this morning I subtlety slipped it to Allura that Shiro would be coming with me today after school. Guess she got a bit excited.” Keith’s breath was hot against Lance’s ear. Keith pulled away from Lance, watching his brother with a smirk that looked too good on his face. Okay, that smirk was doing things to Lance. Just the magic haze in here, he reasoned. Allura was probably using her magic full-force now that Shiro was here, and Lance getting hit with it too was a side effect. 

Piano lessons, his brain supplied, actually being helpful for once. Keith seemed to have the same idea, and was already making his way across the room to the piano. 

Lance followed, staring at Keith’s at the back red cropped jacket. It was red, so almost pink, but so much easier to look at than everything else right now. Lance flopped onto the piano bench. 

“Okay, so I’m assuming you practiced.” Keith cocked an eyebrow at Lance and sat down on a chair next to him. 

“What do you take me for, a loser? Of course I practiced,” Lance glared at Keith. The pink was really messing with him now, because why would Lance ever think that Keith looking at him with a raised eyebrow was hot? Lance should probably explain what was going on in case he started ogling Keith so he didn’t freak the boy out.

“Oh yeah, also, for some reason I really got hit by Allura’s magic, way worse than anybody else in here. Literally everything in this shop is some shade of pink for me right now, including the piano,” Lance blurted, hating how dumb he sounded. “Except you. And other people. But all the objects are pink.”

Keith stared at him for a moment before _laughing._ “Oh my god, you have to be one of those people that’s hypersensitive to this type of magic. If it’s hot neon pink that would be even better.”

Keith was laughing at Lance’s suffering. Great. “Thankfully it’s not neon pink or I’d literally not even be able to do this lesson. Thanks for the sympathy, by the way.” And then he just had to mention, “You don’t even know how it feels. This romantic atmosphere that Allura created made me feel attracted to the freaking piano for a few minutes earlier!”

Keith laughed even harder. “You, attracted to a piano. I wish I’d been there to see it,” he managed to get out between laughs. 

“Not a word, Keith. Let’s just start the lesson.”

An hour later, Lance learned that he still sucked at piano. But Keith had also given him an actual book to use, which meant that he had really basic sheet music to try to learn now. At least there would be less fumbling around at home, though still an equal amount of teasing from siblings who thought he looked stupid trying to learn the instrument. Their loss. When he became a pro, he’d be the one laughing.

“Lance, have you seen my cat?” Keith asked as they were packing up for the day. 

Lance had probably seen the animal sleeping in some corner earlier, though now when Lance’s eyes raked the room over he was having trouble finding her. 

Keith shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll start leaving and she’ll probably realize it soon enough.”

Lance gawked at him. “You can’t just leave your familiar behind!”

“I mean, Mittens is pretty capable of doing stuff on her own. She probably knows more magic than your pea-sized brain does,” Keith taunted. 

“Hey! Your brain is probably the size of a grain of rice!”

“Also, she’s not a pet. She is literally an embodiment of magic. Haven’t you left your familiar on their own before?” 

“Yeah, but, we’re like, buddies, pals, you know? I know Lola would feel hurt if I just left her behind!” 

“I don’t think my cat would,” Keith muttered.

“Why? Because you’ve already left it behind so many times?” 

“What? No! It’s just different personalities. To each their own, I guess,” Keith indignantly sputtered. 

“That still sounds pretty rude to me, but if you think it’s okay, then I’m not going to bother searching for your cat. I just want to get out of this room,” Lance said, rubbing his eyes. 

Still, Keith had to hold the door open for him when they left because Lance couldn’t resist sweeping his eyes through the room one more time, just in case he saw the cat. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she’s fine,” Keith told him. 

Lance started to nod, then noticed the sun setting behind the row of buildings. It was gorgeous and way more colorful than the place he had just come out of. 

“You okay?” Keith asked.

“Just admiring the sunset. I forgot that there were colors other than pink,” Lance said. 

Keith snorted. “I can’t exactly say the same.”

Lance didn’t move, entranced by the streaks of color across the sky. Keith jabbed an elbow into his side. 

“Ow, Keith! What the heck!”

“You should probably get home. It’ll be dark soon.”

Lance groaned. He checked his watch and groaned again. The bus wouldn’t be here for almost an hour. Which could be worse, he supposed, because there had been that one time where the bus just drove right past his stop and he had to wait another hour for the next one. 

“What?” Keith looked at him curiously.

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Lance said. 

“No, now I’m curious. What happened?” 

“Nothing, Keith! I’ll see you tomorrow,” Lance said and starting walking away. Lance wished he had a car. Or a really nice flying carpet. But the last time he had tried to fly, Lance had ended up crashing into a tree, earning a wince and sympathetic glance from Hunk. 

“Wait!” Keith caught up to him, not one to give up so easily. “I’m super curious now. Why do you look like you want to bash your head into the nearest building?” he asked honestly. 

Lance tried to rearrange his expression into something nicer. “I usually catch the bus, and I had bad timing today. I’ll just have a wait a little longer than normal, but it’s fine.”

“Oh,” said Keith. “I thought something really bad happened.” He was biting his lip, considering something. Lance wondered if he was still under the influence of Allura’s haze, because Keith's lips were a very pretty shade of pink, one that Lance could actually stand to look at.

“I could give you a ride then,” Keith finally said, and Lance averted his eyes to anywhere but Keith’s mouth. 

“I don’t want to trouble you,” Lance worried, even though part of him said _yes please anything is better than standing around for an hour for the bus._

“What’s your address?” 

Reluctantly, Lance rattled off the number and street. 

“Okay, that’s actually pretty close to where Shiro and I live.” Speaking of Shiro, Lance had noticed earlier that he had ended up following Allura into the back room at some point. So Lance’s suspicions had been confirmed, though now he had to get the image of both of them making heart eyes at each other out of his mind. 

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Lance asked again, because he really didn’t want to waste other people’s time, especially when that person was Keith, and Keith was already spending a lot of time giving Lance free piano lessons.

“Chill, it’s just a ride. It’ll barely take an extra five minutes,” Keith assured him. 

“Okay, if you’re really fine with it.” Lance followed Keith around to the side of the coffee shop, where he saw _holy shit is that a motorcycle?!?_ It was sparkling red and matched Keith’s jacket. 

“Dude, you didn’t tell me you had a motorcycle!” Lance flapped his hand excitedly, his previous thoughts about bothering Keith forgotten. “I thought you were gonna drive me home in some old beaten-up car or something.”

Keith smirked. “ _Now_ do you want a ride?” He hopped onto the seat of the vehicle in one smooth step. 

“Duh, why would I miss out on an opportunity like this?” Lance asked. He hoisted himself up behind Keith. “Okay, let’s get this baby moving!”

“Lance, you’re going to fall off the moment I start this,” Keith said wryly.

“Oh. Right.” Lance scrambled to find something to hold on to, before realizing that the only thing he could hold was. Keith’s. Waist. Whatever. It wouldn’t be weird because he had to do it or else he’d fall. 

Gingerly, Lance wrapped his arms around Keith. A second later, they shot off.

“KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEITH! YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME THAT YOU WERE GONNA START DRIVING!” Lance screamed. He instinctively gripped Keith’s torso even harder, now fearing for his life. 

Then he looked down. 

Hold on. Something wasn’t right. The ground shouldn’t be this far away. Lance risked bending down slightly farther to peer below and saw that the wheels had retracted into the bottom of the motorcycle. He realized that they were flying down the road, which was probably why they seemed to be travelling so quickly.. 

“I thought this was a motorcycle! Not a hover-cycle or almost an airplane!” Lance screamed into Keith’s ear. 

“What, you don’t like it?” Keith yelled back. He, on the other hand, looked completely happy and not concerned by the fact that falling off would result in even more severe damage now. 

Okay. Lance at least admired the fact that he would be getting home a lot earlier today. He tried to relax and ignore the cold wind rushing at his face. 

Then he relaxed too much and was almost blasted off the back of the seat. So Lance ended up holding on to Keith as much as possible. Lance was probably more aware of the situation because Keith was wearing a cropped jacket and the only thing separating his hands from Keith’s stomach was a thin black shirt. He noted that Keith was warm and a lot nicer than the chilly november wind. He was still reveling in Keith’s body heat when the motorcycle (could he even call it that anymore?) skidded to a stop in front of his house. The wheels came back down and the vehicle slowly descending until it was touching the ground

“You can let go of me now,” Keith politely told him.

“Yup,” Lance said dumbly. He slowly lowered himself off the motorcycle and took a few unsteady steps forward. 

Keith chucked. “You probably took that ride a lot better than most people would have.”

Lance fixed him with a glare. “Why did you drive so fast? You could have killed me, Keith!”

“But I didn’t.” Keith crossed his arms, barely looking fazed. 

Lance glared at him even harder. “That’s not a good reason! Thanks for the ride though,” he muttered. 

“Anytime,” Keith replied. Then he was off, like he had never been there in the first place.


	6. Nocturne

Work was boring. Extremely boring. So boring, in fact, that during Lance’s friday afternoon shift, he was actually looking forward to seeing Keith. Don’t get him wrong, he didn’t hate working at the café, but sometimes there were too few customers and he had nothing to busy himself with. He wanted Keith to walk in like he did every day after school and he wanted to hear Keith run his fingers along piano. It made Lance’s shift a lot less mind-numbing.

But Keith failed to show. 

Lance was confused; Keith himself had said that he had an upcoming competition, and so far Keith had been coming to the shop and practicing every day. Or at least every day that Lance had his shift.

There was probably a very logical explanation for this—Keith could be taking a break, or found himself occupied otherwise after school. Or he could be coming in later. 

So why was Lance worried? 

Well, worried wasn’t exactly the term. He just wished he had music to listen to while taking customers’ orders. He just wished he had someone else he knew around. 

Allura was in the back room as usual, practicing her magic or helping out her uncle Coran, who owned the shop. Hunk was tutoring kids after school, and Pidge, as he now knew, worked with her family at a flower shop across the street. So that only left Keith. 

Another half hour ticked by, and Lance grew increasingly frustrated. Allura had instructed him to not use his phone while working, but Lance decided to take his chances, because it was unlikely that she would walk out of the back room now. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and typed in a hasty text to Keith.

 **L:** where are you? im bored again and i could really listen to your piano music

Did that sound needy? A little, but it was too late now. Lance tucked his phone back into his pocket and waited. And waited. But the telltale vibration that came with a reply never arrived. Lance quickly checked his messages just in case he had turned the vibration off, and saw that Keith had seen his text almost right after Lance had sent it. 

Lance groaned. The guy had left him on read. So all Lance could do was stick through the rest of his shift by himself. At least Lola had come with him to the shop today, so he wasn’t entirely alone, and his familiar was a reassuring company at his side. 

Or so he thought. 

Turns out, Lance did not go the entirety of his shift without seeing Keith. At around 6:39 PM (Lance knew because he had been intensely staring at the clock, trying to use his magic to will it to move faster), Keith stomped through the doors of Altea Beans, a sulky look on his face. Lance only had about twenty minutes until his work ended, but he thought he would be able to enjoy that time now that Keith had arrived. 

Except that Keith was not making his way over to the piano. Instead, Keith slipped through the small flap at the end of the counter that was very clearly marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY” in bright orange. The problem? Keith had made it clear the first time he and Lance met that he did not work here. 

“Hey?” Said a very confused Lance because now there was an extra person behind the counter.

He received a grunt from Keith, the only sign that Keith acknowledged Lance’s presence. Then Keith’s shoulders were brushing Lance’s, and he was pushing past Lance and walking through the back door. 

Lance’s curiosity was piqued, but first he had to impatiently wait for his shift to end. When it did so, he had to wait another few minutes for the next worker to take his shift. 

When he was finally free, Lance nearly bolted for the back door. He had only been in the back room one time, during his interview with Allura, and during that time he hadn’t gotten a good look at its interior. Now that he wasn’t so nervous about getting a job, he was able to actually admire the space. One side of the room was used for storage, with various supplies needed for the shop. On the other side, a low table had been set up, with soft cushions for people to sit on. Allura was seated there, eyes closed and her bird perched on her shoulder. Lights danced around like fireflies, probably from the help of her magic. By the looks of it, she seemed to be practicing again, though thankfully she wasn’t trying to change the mood of the room. 

Today, there was another person in the room. Lance guessed it was Coran, based on Allura’s description of him. He seemed...interesting, to say the least. His curly orange mustache bounced up and down as he walked through the storage aisles and muttered to himself, probably taking stock.

Though momentarily distracted, Lance’s thoughts quickly returned to the matter at hand. “Where’s Keith?” he asked Allura, baffled, because hadn’t Keith gone into this room? He was nowhere to be seen.

Eyes still closed and focused on making the lights move, Allura silently pointed to the other side of the room. After staring at what appeared to be just a chunk of the wall, Lance saw that there was, in fact, yet another door, its outline barely visible in the dancing lights.

Lance pushed the door open and was greeted by cold air outside. The door clicked in place behind him and he looked around before realizing that he was behind the shop. But Allura was wrong, because Keith wasn’t here. The sun was setting, and Lance quickly skimmed the area, though all he saw was a dumpster, an old car, and a much older tree with very gnarly roots. Lance checked behind the car and tree, just in case Keith was there, but no luck. 

Mystified, Lance turned around to go back inside the shop when he spotted Keith, sitting on the roof of Altea Beans. Now that was a good hiding spot if he ever wanted to play hide-and-seek here with his siblings, Lance noted. A really good hiding spot, because Lance couldn’t figure out how Keith had gotten up there. 

A cursory scan of the building walls showed there were no ladders that could be climbed. Furthermore, there were no stairs around the side of the café

By deduction, Keith had to have flown up there. Lance didn’t see Keith’s hovercycle (hoverbike? Lance was still unsure what to call it) sitting on top of the building either, so that left him with an even less plausible option. Keith had flown up there on his own. Lance’s jaw dropped at the thought, because it was one thing to fly with a board or stick or whatever, but it was another to fly unaided. Keith must really be powerful if he could do that.

So how was Lance going to get up there, when he didn’t possess the same talents? The shop was only one story high, but flying wasn’t an option for him. An idea wormed its way into his head. If Hunk were here, he would ridicule Lance for even considering it, but Hunk wasn’t here. Smirking to himself and mentally patting himself on the back for being so smart, Lance quickly dashed into the shop and came back out, his dolphin Lola in tow. 

By now, the sun had almost fully set, but Lance was still intent on getting up there. He hoped his pronunciation was correct when he uttered the spell for enlargement. Warily, he peeked an eye open and grinned in relief, seeing as it had worked Lola had grown to be twice her normal size. Actually, this was how big dolphins normally were, but Lola preferred to stay half the size of regular dolphins because it was more convenient for her. Anyway, now Lola was the perfect size for riding. Lance prayed that he wouldn’t fall off before hopping onto Lola’s back. 

Lola clicked angrily at him. As if I would ever let you fall off, she chastised him. A moment later, he was climbing off her back and onto the rooftop of the coffee shop. 

I’ll just go back inside for now, Lola said. It looks like you probably don’t want me interfering. 

In the now dim light, all Lance could make out was the silhouette of Keith’s back near the side of the roof. Quietly, he approached Keith, trying not to startle him. Keith’s legs were bent, pulled up against his chest, and his arms wrapped around them. His chin was wrestling on his knees, and he seemed to be staring at the sky. Slowly, Lance took a seat next to him, stretching his long legs out in front of him and leaning back on his hands. 

For a long time, nobody spoke. Lance didn’t speak because he had no idea what was going on with Keith, no idea how to console him. Keith didn’t speak...probably because he simply didn’t feel like it. 

But Lance was content to enjoy the silence. He prided himself on helping others, being the friend that was there to listen. And even if Keith had nothing to say and Lance had nothing to listen to, he hoped Keith would still find comfort in Lance at least being there. 

He risked a glance at Keith and saw that the boy didn’t look particularly sad or upset. Rather, Keith just seemed at peace as he looked up into space. Lance wondered what Keith was thinking.

Lance had a lot of experience dealing with people, but Keith was harder to read. Even now, when he looked more vulnerable, arms circling around bent knees, Keith was still a locked book, one that would only open after a great deal of time. An enigmatic and powerful magician, a nut that Lance was determined to crack. 

Lance had given Keith space when he first sat down, but now he considered putting an arm around Keith’s shoulders, or at least saying something. Between the two of them, not even a single greeting had been uttered. Yes, yes, Lance had heard of the whole silence is golden spiel, but someone had to say something at some point. 

For now, though, he tried with fidgeting with his shirt sleeves, until he thought that he might be an annoyance. 

So then Lance mimicked Keith and eventually just settled for looking up. At the vast darkness above him, the emptiness that surrounded him and made him feel insignificant. At the stars twinkling so far away, at the crescent moon shining a crooked smile. At space, an even deeper mystery than Keith. 

He felt a fuzzy sensation, like he was being watched, and Lance slowly turned his head to the side. Sometime while Lance had been staring into oblivion, Keith had stopped looking at the stars and was now looking at him. Their gazes met. Keith turned back away to look up. 

“Space is a lot like music, isn’t it.” Keith was the one to break the silence, his eyes still trained on a star, perhaps one that could be its own sun if it were in a different galaxy. 

“Huh?” Lance, startled by their eye contact, and then by the sound and the question, could only let out an undignified squeak. 

“Music and space, they have a lot in common,” Keith repeated. “Neither is really magical but both feel that way.”

“That’s kinda deep. But true,” Lance agreed, and he too looked back into the darkness.

“I’ve always wanted to travel to space. It’s not something you can do with the help of magic, just like you can’t play the piano with the help of magic, I guess. That itself makes space really enticing, y’know?” Keith asked.

“Actually, I’ve wanted to go to space too. I used to want to be an astronaut when I was younger,” Lance said. “Now not as much...because I ask myself, if I went to space, would I ever come back?”

“God, I don’t even know what I’m doing up here tonight,” Keith muttered. “I used to go stargazing with my dad, and we would sometimes drive to all these obscure places to watch meteor showers and eclipses and stuff. And it’s just been so long since I’ve done that, that I kinda just felt a pull tonight. Really, it’s probably been a couple years since I properly just sat down and looked at the stars again.” Keith’s voice broke and he winced. “I...I told myself I wasn’t going to cry. But here I am...” He gave a hoarse laugh. “Feel free to leave if you want, I’ll understand.”

Lance stared at Keith, flabbergasted. “Why would I leave? C’mon, you look like you need a hug.” And so Lance, feeling more daring than usual, opened his arms. 

Keith looked downright mortified at Lance’s gesture, as if he’d never been offered a hug before. That only made Lance scoot closer and spread his arms wider. An awkward moment passed before Keith finally leaned into the embrace and allowed Lance’s arms to engulf him. 

Wow, Lance had noticed on the ride last night, but Keith was warm. And Lance, feeling even more daring than usual, tugged Keith closer and pulled his back against Lance’s chest. Well...sort of. Lance’s legs were blocking so it was more like pulling Keith against his side. Still warm though. The boy ducked his head into Lance’s right arm, and he heard him sniffle a couple times. Keith gradually melted, became less stiff, and sighed a “thanks.”

Based on Keith’s story, it seemed like Keith’s father had passed away. But Lance didn’t bring that up, and instead just looked over Keith’s shoulder back into the cosmos. 

“You should have seen my room when I was in middle school,” Lance said, trying to lighten the mood. “There were a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars plastered on the ceiling and walls, and a poster of a rocket ship taped to the wall. Actually, I think a few of the stars are still there. And I played so many outer space-related video games.”

Keith gave a quiet laugh. 

“Also, there’s probably still an old telescope around the house somewhere. Used to be my older brother’s, but now it’s mine. I should totally bring it up here sometime.”

“That would actually be...nice,” Keith said into Lance’s elbow. “Space is so large and endless that a telescope wouldn’t do it justice though. That’s why I wanted to travel to space and see it for myself.”

“Keith, don’t get all deep on me again, or else I might start having an existential crisis,” Lance groaned. “Looking at all these stars already makes me feel small, and talking about makes it worse.”

“You are pretty small though. We all are,” Keith said honestly. “But if you think about it, if space is so large, there has got to be more life out there, like aliens.”

Lance narrowed his eyes at Keith. “You really believe in aliens, don’t you.”

“I mean, there’s a high possibility that they exist, so yeah,” Keith nodded. 

“But there’s no proof!”

“What do you mean no proof???” Keith demanded. “So this is unrelated but I had this set of comic book things when I was younger and it was about this giant robot in space called Voltron. And the robot was made up of five lions that were each piloted by a different person. And Voltron would bring peace to the galaxy. They fought these aliens called the galra, or at least the evil galra. Sounds kinda stupid now but I loved it. Anyway, I doubt aliens like the galra exist, but aliens themselves probably do,” Keith rambled. “Just look at how big space is, there’s got to be life at least somewhere out there? And what about all those UFO sightings? Oh, and there’s stuff like bigfoot and mothman and—”

“Okay, okay! But that’s enough weird theories for one night.” Lance cut him off with a laugh. “On a more serious note, is this why you’re up here tonight? Just thinking about space, and ...your...dad?” he asked cautiously.

“Yeah, I guess I just missed doing this. I also failed another math test today, which is great, school is great, but maybe also I wanted some time alone to just stargaze again.” 

At this Lance’s arms loosened their grip on Keith. “I’m sorry, I hoped I wasn’t intruding too much,” Lance said quietly.

“No, it’s...nice. I haven’t had a deep conversation like this in a long time.” 

Though Keith’s back was against him and Lance couldn’t see Keith’s face, it seemed like Keith was smiling. 

“For some reason I feel more at home when I’m closer to space.”

“Me too, actually,” Lance quietly said, not wanting to ruin the moment.

And then both of them fell silent, so it was just Keith, Lance, and the stars. 

Lance dropped an arm to help prop himself up, but left his other arm hanging loosely over Keith’s shoulder. Keith still radiated heat, which was nice, because it was getting cold. Minus the distant glow coming from the streetlights, it was almost completely dark as well. Maybe this was why it the roof was a nice stargazing spot. 

“So you said you have a telescope, right?” Keith whispered.

“Mhm,” Lance hummed.

“I think there’s a big meteor shower next month, so if you’re up to it, you could bring it with you and we could do this again.”

We could do this again. Lance liked how the words sounded.

“Totally. Nice to see that you’re emo and nerdy,” Lance teased.

“I am not emo!”

“Look at your mullet and all-black clothes and tell that to me again,” Lance retorted.

Keith sighed tiredly. “Whatever.” He tiredly leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder and blinked lazily at the stars. 

Lance chuckled. It wasn’t even that late, but he found himself feeling tired too. It was like he could fall asleep here. He stared into space, eyelids growing heavy. This whole situation was nice and cozy. He wondered if Keith considered him a friend now.

\---

Keith woke up to...quietness, for once. His alarm wasn’t blaring in his ear, which was nice, but he realized it was saturday now, not a school day, so he wouldn’t have an alarm set for today. It was...dark? Other than distant streetlights and stars shimmering in the background. Keith realized he had fallen asleep, and apparently on Lance’s shoulder, too. Lance currently had his own head rested on Keith’s own, which was comforting, Keith admitted. His entire talk with Lance last night had been comforting. Maybe that was why he felt well rested, despite the fact that Keith was pretty sure he had only gotten a few hours of sleep. 

Either way, he had to get home soon. Shiro was probably already wondering where the heck he was. Slowly, he slid his head out from under Lance’s. Although, now Lance had nowhere to lean his head own, so Keith slowly lowered Lance until he was sleeping on his back. Keith took off his jacket and slowly rolled it up, resting it under Lance’s head so he’d have somewhat of a pillow.

For a moment, Keith debated whether or not to get Lance up as well, because surely his family must be worried too. But Lance looked so peaceful, slumbering beneath the stars, that Keith just couldn’t wake him up. 

So Keith slipped away, silently thankful for Lance being so understanding earlier and for the night they had shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering, the title of this chapter, nocturne, is usually used to describe a piece of music that reflects the moods/feelings of nighttime. I thought it would be fitting.
> 
> Also: The news about Shiro! So I'll still continue with Shallura, since this fanfic started on that path, but in possible future fics I'll likely pair Shiro with Adam. I still ship Shallura, but I'm definitely aboard the new ship and I don't want to completely disregard cannon stuff so...yeah.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading if you've stuck this far with me! It really does mean a lot, especially since this is my first fanfic.
> 
>  
> 
> NOTE: As of 12/28/2018 - It's been a while since I've updated, and I probably won't be updating for another while too. (The only things I've updated were the tags, which indicate what I'm about to say here). 
> 
> I'm putting this work on an indefinite hiatus, as I can't find the motivation to continue it. I may pick it back up in the future, although I cannot guarantee this either. I'm really sorry about this, since I had wanted to at least complete one work on ao3, but motivation is a fickle beast. (rip). I really do appreciate the kudos and comments left from what I've written, though--they were a big part of the motivation that got me this far. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking with me and being understanding. I know that there are countless other amazing fics out there (If you ever want suggestions, feel free to hmu in the comments section below. I've read way to many fanfics and have way too many recommendations. lol.)


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